“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!-Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-On this home by Horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore-Is there-is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me, I implore!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!By that Heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore-Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting-“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted-nevermore!
Rantin’ and Ravin’ BY JOSEPH WAMBAUGH
Once upon a twilight teary, while I mourned so blitzed and bleary, O’er my script which got demolished by a showbiz bloody bore, Suddenly there came a dinging-“You’ve got mail!”-an e-mail singing,Much annoyed with ears a-ringing, I decided to ignore, And swilled another mug of suds, permeating every pore. “’Tis only spam,” I muttered then. This and nothing more.
Presently with breath a-reeking, I chose to do some e-mail peeking, Which rained on me a host of doubts that pierced me to the core. For Michael wanted “ruminations,” and that filled me with trepidation,He wished for thoughts about a scribe from golden days of yore. A testimonial to this titan? But I had demons I was fightin’. At least two hundred words, he urged. This and nothing more.
Now I felt my stomach burning, the hops and malts inside me churning,As I remembered childhood learning, and volumes I’d explored. Then my guilt it overtook me, Mike’s insistent plea, it shook me, The e-mail I should have deleted could now not be ignored. I thought somehow I must comply, for Poe who’s on a throne so high,Deserves much thanks from such as I, and others gone before.
Thus I set off plodding, spurred by Michael’s “gentle prodding,” Hoping I could yet discover sentiments that soar.I imagined many noble words, and thought I glimpsed a great black bird,Whose unforgiving glower drove me to an icy shower, To find within the power and draw temperance to the fore. Alas, the water only froze me and made my bald spot sore.
This I say to Michael C., I ask that you envision me, A forlorn wretch no longer musing, in his cups from all the boozing,Who shall soon be mute and snoozing upon the study floor.Before that swoon I swear to you, I’ll quaff another brew or two,In honor of courageous Poe, who threw open every door.But I won’t open “gentle” e-mails. Not now, and NEVERMORE!
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Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant, is the New York Times best-selling author of The Onion Field, The Blooding, The Choirboys, and many other fiction and nonfiction works. He has won a number of awards, including the Edgar Award and the Rodolfo Walsh Prize for investigative journalism. He lives with his wife in California.
A Little Thought on Poe BY THOMAS H. COOK
I was once asked what one-word description of a book would most likely cause me to read it. Without a blink, I answered, “Haunting.” Why? Because I have found to my surprise that although people will often describe a book as “great,” they will, upon further questioning, be wholly unable to recall a single line or scene or even the basic plot of a book that, though evidently “great,” proved to be not in the least memorable. It is just the opposite with Poe, whose greatness, it seems to me, resides in the fact that his readers actually remember him. In poem after poem and story after story, we remember Poe. We remember that “when I was a child and she was a child,” these two children lived “in a kingdom by the sea.” We remember the Raven’s bleak warning that in the end everything dissolves into the oblivion of “Nevermore.” We remember the beating of a tell-tale heart and “the moaning and the groaning” of the bells. To remember a writer in this way is to be haunted by him, to have his words and scenes and characters forever alive in your mind. That is what true literary greatness is, and it is a greatness that was Poe’s.
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Thomas H. Cook is arguably America ’s shortest male crime writer. Utterly lacking in tough-guy characteristics, he remains the mystery world’s most consistent no-show at sporting events, car races, horse races, and urban marathons. He has never painted his face in anticipation of the Super Bowl and is allergic to beer. His only experience with law enforcement was being pulled over for speeding, at which time he was given only a warning. As a boy, he wanted to be a great writer; then he read some great writers and decided he was nowhere near that good. Since then, he has churned out more than twenty novels and a smattering of nonfiction. He likes writing short stories because they’re short, and he does not like writing long books because they’re long. He has never read Remembrance of Things Past, though on the street he is often mistaken for Marcel Proust.
Hear the sledges with the bells-Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells-From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.