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TO THE PROUD ORBS THAT TWINKLE
1 min read
TO THE PROUD ORBS THAT TWINKLE
(A 'message' to the poet, E.A.P.)
From thy far star, nebulous Night
Dost thou see with certain sight--
This mirror hemisphere
In its lustrous, luminous light?
Adown the heavens in their respite,
The constellations and comets in flight--
Stir the celestial sphere
In galactic swirls of spirals bright.
Thy Day-Star rises to warm the wold
Sered and chilled by the lunar cold.
Diffused by Sol's cynosure,
A scintillating sister--in halo of gold--
Harbinger of heralded dreams untold.
It is where trailing Taurids thus enfold
Thy lolling muse--in composure--
'Neath loblollies, by shallows shoaled.
(c. 2017, by Twila-TDB.)
(A 'message' to the poet, E.A.P.)
From thy far star, nebulous Night
Dost thou see with certain sight--
This mirror hemisphere
In its lustrous, luminous light?
Adown the heavens in their respite,
The constellations and comets in flight--
Stir the celestial sphere
In galactic swirls of spirals bright.
Thy Day-Star rises to warm the wold
Sered and chilled by the lunar cold.
Diffused by Sol's cynosure,
A scintillating sister--in halo of gold--
Harbinger of heralded dreams untold.
It is where trailing Taurids thus enfold
Thy lolling muse--in composure--
'Neath loblollies, by shallows shoaled.
(c. 2017, by Twila-TDB.)
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DIADEMS (For Edgar A. Poe)
2 min read
DIADEMS (For E.A.P.)
Night knows no stars (no stars that we may see!)
Neither diamond, nor snowflake, made crystalline--
Which can be said to bejewel the most florid Florentine.
How lace-like 'diadems' disperse through a satin sea:
Joyful, they flit, whilst nereids knit on Neptune's doily--
Who drowses, recumbant, upon a nacre throne.
To rouse from surf's slumber at my virtuous tone!
May the diatoms bequeath thee a phosphorous light
To see me as I save thee from thine awful plight.
(Into this dominion's depths dove I, alone,
To save thee, and see thee through thy pitiless plight.)
Let not thy trident be buried by driving dunes!
My lines--let three tines inscribe, on rhyming runes:
"For I hath dreamt thee an Atlantean city...
Waved on, admiringly, by fluorescent anemone."
(Thera, rising ruined! Plato's sunken city...)
A portentous portal, Aegean gods all know.
Thus much I convey, so each mortal may know--
This, which was spoke by thine immortal Poe:
(Hero, whose words vanquished an immemorial foe.)
"There dwell no demons down under the sea!--
Forevermore, I bore them away--from thine and thee."
(c.2016. Twila-TDB.)
Wherein Mr. Poe, an athletic and admirable swimmer in his day, rescues the venerable sea god from a pacifying, Pacific sleep induced by 'the demons down under the sea'. With nods to Poe's "The City in the Sea", "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", "Ulalume", and "To My Mother".
Night knows no stars (no stars that we may see!)
Neither diamond, nor snowflake, made crystalline--
Which can be said to bejewel the most florid Florentine.
How lace-like 'diadems' disperse through a satin sea:
Joyful, they flit, whilst nereids knit on Neptune's doily--
Who drowses, recumbant, upon a nacre throne.
To rouse from surf's slumber at my virtuous tone!
May the diatoms bequeath thee a phosphorous light
To see me as I save thee from thine awful plight.
(Into this dominion's depths dove I, alone,
To save thee, and see thee through thy pitiless plight.)
Let not thy trident be buried by driving dunes!
My lines--let three tines inscribe, on rhyming runes:
"For I hath dreamt thee an Atlantean city...
Waved on, admiringly, by fluorescent anemone."
(Thera, rising ruined! Plato's sunken city...)
A portentous portal, Aegean gods all know.
Thus much I convey, so each mortal may know--
This, which was spoke by thine immortal Poe:
(Hero, whose words vanquished an immemorial foe.)
"There dwell no demons down under the sea!--
Forevermore, I bore them away--from thine and thee."
(c.2016. Twila-TDB.)
Wherein Mr. Poe, an athletic and admirable swimmer in his day, rescues the venerable sea god from a pacifying, Pacific sleep induced by 'the demons down under the sea'. With nods to Poe's "The City in the Sea", "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", "Ulalume", and "To My Mother".
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All of the Little Goth Girls Love Edgar
2 min read
All of the Little Goth Girls Love Edgar
by "Twila"
All of the little Goth girls love Edgar.
Shadowy-silvern, his pale, forlorn features.
Lines they revere on old scroll-like ledgers.
Words to enthrall such dear, winsome creatures.
Nervous, aflutter, hearts beat fast, fast--faster.
Truly, 'Ultima Thule' rules--dually:
Image and man are two darksome masters.
Ever a 'soul to soul' night-tide yearning;
Heavens conspire to keep far stars burning.
Radiant Virginia's pure, porcelain presence
Transcends an inked waif's wraith-like essence.
Blackly, do Corvus adorn chatelaine medals.
Truly, 'Ultima Thule' rules--dually:
Visage and verse are what Goth-gear gents peddle.
Even the granny Goths love sweet Edgar.
One, or a few, his rhymes, tales, send shivers.
Oh, they should read essays, well-writ letters--
Witness 'The Tomahawk Man's' blade sliver
Poems 'be-puffed', pied prose, trite tomes--'turkeys'.
Dually, 'Ultima Thule' rules--truly:
Might they now deem him less dark, weird--quirky?
Demon in view, unruly prince--POET.
"Edgar, Forever", purr Goth girls--crow it!
(c. 2014.,Twila-TDB.)
NOTE: This is a humorous observation regarding the effect of Mr. Poe upon his female admirers, and his "afterlife" as reflected in the adulation, and prolific marketing, of a certain iconic daguerreotype.
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The Stone
6 min read
THE STONE (For Edgar A. Poe)
On October 3, 1849, Edgar A. Poe was found, after a disappearance of some five days, in Baltimore. Barely conscious, he was sent to a hospital where he would die a mere four days later, on October 7, 1849. What happened to him remains a haunting mystery. This poem was written with that in mind, giving two possible reasons for his demise. Attending it are notes which will help to guide in its understanding, especially for those not familiar with Poe's literary or personal life. Our story begins in a graveyard and, ends, suitably, in the same graveyard. But, does it?
THE STONE (For Edgar A. Poe)
As shovels, tender, broke the stricken clay--
When clods and cleaved wood did fall away--
Some said, a stone did rattle through his head,
Now risen high above the drabbled bed.
This 'stone'--said some--basalt was made, yet sere:
The whorls were ashen, swirled most severe.
Its rattle rightly rang, and many ran
To proclaim: 'Behold! the brain--of learned man'.
For whom a pen would plot with ink on pages
To waken dreary dreams--of weary sages--
Whose shadows rode with hapless knights of old--
Their quest: to seek the Muiscan gold.
A brain, it was!--inside a cradle wide;
With chalken grace, the outer breadth vied.
And, clung about were curls now rusty brown;
Which, long ago, were 'raven'--soft as down.
'That strapping lad--these shards were all he left?'
'Six miles he swam the current!' (The sexton wept.)
No river ever dared him, but Strife;
In lonely years, became his only wife.
Her hand would brush the poet's balmy brow
And force from temples taut--a shipless prow--
To sail afore the storm, adrift the foam
And wave, to never reach the shore of home...
Nor cottage door a-gate; nor piney path,
Beyond the chill of poorly plastered lath.
(Along the aqueduct, on nights so crisp,
The priestly bells were rung--but, nigh a wisp.)
Geranium vase, he lay against her vault--
This maiden, entombed, in a Valentine vault;
Declared a sing-sung verse,
In summer's sweet assault:
Of a kingdom, immersed,
In a lover's tears of salt.
For, a dreamer, erelong--bereft of life and pride--
Dreamt of heavens--of Helens--and hellish horses astride.
Then, slept the night beside his darling bride,
His last, with her, before a steamer ride...
So, there he lay--in dankest cellar damp--
In clothes others wore--about this camp.
In pain, as tincture--trickling--so ate his brain;
Then, drug to the polls--again, and again!
Elusive rest: without solace, a maelstrom mind
Was spared not minutes, hours, nor days in kind--
Until the Gaul, defeated, dropped his sword;
Until his soul, in dying, beseeched the Lord.
Of hope, he spoke; at last, of love he wrote:
Of thwarted love, his kinsman rose to quote.
His lines in print the hour he was sorely sent--
To lie unmarked--hardly a penny spent.
(From off the rail, a rolling rumble,
Which rent the runes all a-tumble;
As thru the yard, alone, it crashed:
Unto the bard's stone, it smashed!)
Those who sought the poet's straggly mound,
Were fraught that there, no stone they found.
And, thus, a fragment--so wragged and weighty--
(The sexton set) bore not his name, but "Eighty".
Yet, copper coins the children gladly gave:
To rake his bones toward a better grave;
Beside him place their bones for want of rest:
His wife and 'mother' whom loved him best.
"Ever, with thee, I choose to roam..."
(Edgar, with thee, thy tomb, my home.)
A cenotaph--enchanted--of briny bream, flaunted;
Down Yaanek--its beam--from scoriac rivers, vaunted.
Granite and marble top them--weight him down--
Forbid him rise and ramble paths to town;
Or, query men who might the stone, now, know--
(Who, like the quarry-men, cleave and stow.)--
'The stone' that neither death nor brain would show.
By "Twila"-TDB, c. 2012.
NOTES: Some doctors believe that the "stone" seen inside Poe's skull during the 1875 exhumation was actually a calcified brain tumor. It may have been there, but was not the immediate cause of his death. The strongest evidence, for the possible cause of his demise, points to the "cooping" theory; he was found in ragged clothing unlike his own on Election Day, October 3, 1849, near a tavern used as a polling place. The vernacular, "drug" in Stanza 10., should be spoken with great emphasis as it serves a two-fold purpose: to indicate that the poet may have been drugged with laudanum (tincture), or laudanum-laced alcohol, while suffering in the 'camp', or coop, then forcibly made to cast his ballot at various locations on Election Day.
"That strapping lad" refers both to Poe in his youth--the athletic swimmer, runner, jumper, and boxer--and the young militiaman whom was allegedly exhumed--at first thought by those present during the 1875 reburial to be the poet.
"Muiscan gold" refers to the legendary El Dorado; also, the name of one of Poe's last poems.
I restored lines from the original version which were omitted. Stanza 8. makes reference to Poe's landlord, a Mr. Valentine, who lent the use of his family vault after Virginia Poe died. It also references the poem, "Annabel Lee", which is, in turn, referenced again in Stanzas 9. and 12., as that was the poem printed along with the infamous Griswold obituary, appearing in print at the time of Poe's burial. Line two of Stanza 9. refers to "Eureka", Poe's prose poem regarding the Cosmos; both Jane Stith Stanard and Helen Whitman for whom Poe wrote poems entitled, "To Helen", are also referenced. 'Hellish horses' refers to the flaming horse from Poe's first macabre story, "Metzengerstein", and the 'iron horses', or trains, one of which took him to his doom in Baltimore.
Stanzas 13. and 14. are restored, and they further the tone of the ignominious burial of Mr. Poe.
In Stanza 16., I have paraphrased Virginia speaking her acrostic Valentine poem to Edgar, with a slight and telling translation in parentheses. The next line is what Edgar might have explained to her: that marble comes from limestone, a stone derived, basically, from fish bones, that the tomb/cenotaph builders were being haughty. Again, in the line which follows, we can imagine the celebratory builders waxing POE-tic, using his words from "Ulalume" to hoodwink the public into believing the granite base (here, "beam") of the monument came from Mt. Yaanek, Poe's imaginary volcano, and was formed from the scoriac rivers, or lava flows. Lastly, I have given the 'quarry-men' their due by restoring that line.
On October 3, 1849, Edgar A. Poe was found, after a disappearance of some five days, in Baltimore. Barely conscious, he was sent to a hospital where he would die a mere four days later, on October 7, 1849. What happened to him remains a haunting mystery. This poem was written with that in mind, giving two possible reasons for his demise. Attending it are notes which will help to guide in its understanding, especially for those not familiar with Poe's literary or personal life. Our story begins in a graveyard and, ends, suitably, in the same graveyard. But, does it?
THE STONE (For Edgar A. Poe)
As shovels, tender, broke the stricken clay--
When clods and cleaved wood did fall away--
Some said, a stone did rattle through his head,
Now risen high above the drabbled bed.
This 'stone'--said some--basalt was made, yet sere:
The whorls were ashen, swirled most severe.
Its rattle rightly rang, and many ran
To proclaim: 'Behold! the brain--of learned man'.
For whom a pen would plot with ink on pages
To waken dreary dreams--of weary sages--
Whose shadows rode with hapless knights of old--
Their quest: to seek the Muiscan gold.
A brain, it was!--inside a cradle wide;
With chalken grace, the outer breadth vied.
And, clung about were curls now rusty brown;
Which, long ago, were 'raven'--soft as down.
'That strapping lad--these shards were all he left?'
'Six miles he swam the current!' (The sexton wept.)
No river ever dared him, but Strife;
In lonely years, became his only wife.
Her hand would brush the poet's balmy brow
And force from temples taut--a shipless prow--
To sail afore the storm, adrift the foam
And wave, to never reach the shore of home...
Nor cottage door a-gate; nor piney path,
Beyond the chill of poorly plastered lath.
(Along the aqueduct, on nights so crisp,
The priestly bells were rung--but, nigh a wisp.)
Geranium vase, he lay against her vault--
This maiden, entombed, in a Valentine vault;
Declared a sing-sung verse,
In summer's sweet assault:
Of a kingdom, immersed,
In a lover's tears of salt.
For, a dreamer, erelong--bereft of life and pride--
Dreamt of heavens--of Helens--and hellish horses astride.
Then, slept the night beside his darling bride,
His last, with her, before a steamer ride...
So, there he lay--in dankest cellar damp--
In clothes others wore--about this camp.
In pain, as tincture--trickling--so ate his brain;
Then, drug to the polls--again, and again!
Elusive rest: without solace, a maelstrom mind
Was spared not minutes, hours, nor days in kind--
Until the Gaul, defeated, dropped his sword;
Until his soul, in dying, beseeched the Lord.
Of hope, he spoke; at last, of love he wrote:
Of thwarted love, his kinsman rose to quote.
His lines in print the hour he was sorely sent--
To lie unmarked--hardly a penny spent.
(From off the rail, a rolling rumble,
Which rent the runes all a-tumble;
As thru the yard, alone, it crashed:
Unto the bard's stone, it smashed!)
Those who sought the poet's straggly mound,
Were fraught that there, no stone they found.
And, thus, a fragment--so wragged and weighty--
(The sexton set) bore not his name, but "Eighty".
Yet, copper coins the children gladly gave:
To rake his bones toward a better grave;
Beside him place their bones for want of rest:
His wife and 'mother' whom loved him best.
"Ever, with thee, I choose to roam..."
(Edgar, with thee, thy tomb, my home.)
A cenotaph--enchanted--of briny bream, flaunted;
Down Yaanek--its beam--from scoriac rivers, vaunted.
Granite and marble top them--weight him down--
Forbid him rise and ramble paths to town;
Or, query men who might the stone, now, know--
(Who, like the quarry-men, cleave and stow.)--
'The stone' that neither death nor brain would show.
By "Twila"-TDB, c. 2012.
NOTES: Some doctors believe that the "stone" seen inside Poe's skull during the 1875 exhumation was actually a calcified brain tumor. It may have been there, but was not the immediate cause of his death. The strongest evidence, for the possible cause of his demise, points to the "cooping" theory; he was found in ragged clothing unlike his own on Election Day, October 3, 1849, near a tavern used as a polling place. The vernacular, "drug" in Stanza 10., should be spoken with great emphasis as it serves a two-fold purpose: to indicate that the poet may have been drugged with laudanum (tincture), or laudanum-laced alcohol, while suffering in the 'camp', or coop, then forcibly made to cast his ballot at various locations on Election Day.
"That strapping lad" refers both to Poe in his youth--the athletic swimmer, runner, jumper, and boxer--and the young militiaman whom was allegedly exhumed--at first thought by those present during the 1875 reburial to be the poet.
"Muiscan gold" refers to the legendary El Dorado; also, the name of one of Poe's last poems.
I restored lines from the original version which were omitted. Stanza 8. makes reference to Poe's landlord, a Mr. Valentine, who lent the use of his family vault after Virginia Poe died. It also references the poem, "Annabel Lee", which is, in turn, referenced again in Stanzas 9. and 12., as that was the poem printed along with the infamous Griswold obituary, appearing in print at the time of Poe's burial. Line two of Stanza 9. refers to "Eureka", Poe's prose poem regarding the Cosmos; both Jane Stith Stanard and Helen Whitman for whom Poe wrote poems entitled, "To Helen", are also referenced. 'Hellish horses' refers to the flaming horse from Poe's first macabre story, "Metzengerstein", and the 'iron horses', or trains, one of which took him to his doom in Baltimore.
Stanzas 13. and 14. are restored, and they further the tone of the ignominious burial of Mr. Poe.
In Stanza 16., I have paraphrased Virginia speaking her acrostic Valentine poem to Edgar, with a slight and telling translation in parentheses. The next line is what Edgar might have explained to her: that marble comes from limestone, a stone derived, basically, from fish bones, that the tomb/cenotaph builders were being haughty. Again, in the line which follows, we can imagine the celebratory builders waxing POE-tic, using his words from "Ulalume" to hoodwink the public into believing the granite base (here, "beam") of the monument came from Mt. Yaanek, Poe's imaginary volcano, and was formed from the scoriac rivers, or lava flows. Lastly, I have given the 'quarry-men' their due by restoring that line.
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