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Edgar and Me

© Ben Burton 2-20-2015

If I were Edgar Allan Poe
I'd been dead many years ago


Two score, no more, the poet bore
Before rejoining his Lenore


Reflections now, from sixty-five
I'm wondering how I have survived


For, having shared his mental state
Induced abuse which bordered crazed


In looking back it seems most strange
The lucid fundamental change


Created in a child of eight
Whose kinship must have been innate


With one long dead, a hundred years
Before that smack upon my rear


I learned his poems, all were gems
And thought that rhyme was named for him


Read "Gold Bug" and "The Telltale Heart"
Thence, for some time I feared the dark


And as I read, I knew that I
Had, even then, the skills to write


Though modesty forbade the act
Far less than the assured attack


For none dare read foul poetry
In place of chase or hide and seek


When unassigned, a travesty
I wrote in fits, but just for me


"The Raven" and "The Bells" bequeathed
A rhythm beat of hell in me


Too natural to be mere chance
My mind would rhyme through happenstance


With no attempts to join the breed
Through school or university


I, nonetheless, read works aloud
In hopes their authors had been proud


Won competitions far and wide
Unsatisfied, the words weren't mine


And yet, I kept my pen at bay
Years past my graduation day


Jack Daniels opened up my soul
To take me on poetic strolls


Not unlike Poe who oft consumed
Whilst making sojourns to the tomb


I hungered to make words my own
Through blank verse, limerick, or song


Though mostly as a barroom trick
Which oft'times made the pick-up quick


But then, at length, I followed Poe
Officially gave up the ghost


By then I'd fifteen years surpassed
The forty Poe logged for his last


But providence did intervene
Man-made machine, propitiously


Brought back to life that muscle which
Once stilled, rarely renews its tick


My second life was born to write
To spill it all, let nothing slide


And, on ten years my pen creates
Whatever my odd mind dictates


With second chance, I wish to praise
The first man whom within me raised


A passion known as poetry
Though I am light years from his league


We met in El Dorado's dream
Two kindred souls, Edgar and me

Copyright © Ben Burton | Year Posted 2015

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