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