Homage to Poe: Halloween 2015

Illustration by Arnaud de Vallois.

 

 

 

 

Homage to Poe

Sauntering sonorous shoals,
disinherited, disrespected,
yet circumspectly attired,
black cravat knotted tight,

tilting along alluvial plains where
so many died in that fratricidal war
that copses still stink of corpses,
decomposing filial plaint and hate

into familial love, and haunt
with smells of freshly baked bread
the closet where his cousin starves,
her beauty chill from lack of coal,

he scribbles yet another book review
that will alienate Griswold permanently,
convinced only British understand
a gothic fantasy of empire’s decay

Raven_Manet

which the defeated South, its heritage
denied, mourns, recalcitrant, mauled
by a mercantilism that reduces poetry
to penury, and culture to popular fads.

[Disposable Poem September 8, 2015]
Dr. Mike

PPS – Try reading “Homage to Poe” out loud.

The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe revealed.

The Raven (1935): A brilliant surgeon obsessed with Poe saves the life of a beautiful dancer and goes mad when he can’t have her. With Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware.

With Audio Commentary on Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff:

Courtesy of Dangerous Minds.net:

In 1953, esteemed actor James Mason narrated an animated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which was the first cartoon to be given an “X” certificate by the British Board of Film Censors. It’s a rather splendid animation which was nominated for an Academy Award—though sadly lost out to Walt Disney’s Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom. It’s a creepy and highly atmospheric little film that fully captures the terror and madness of Poe’s classic tale.

“The Terror” is so delightful! Nicholson had the bug long, long before The Shining.

Lou Reed adapts The Raven.

An interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven by Lord Buckley, from 1969’s A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat.

An in-depth and amusing analysis of The Raven by Thug Notes.

Courtesy of Dark Corner Books.com

Five of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known stories are brought to vivid life in this visually stunning animated anthology featuring the voices of Sir Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Julian Sands, Roger Corman and Guillermo del Toro. Directed by Raul Garcia.

 

Where Once Poe Walked

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery’s secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

                                                     -H.P. Lovecraft