Poe on Crack...?!!

“Poe on Crack”

Why is there no safe haven?
For a Neanderthal spaceman like me?
I’d prefer not to smoke with defeatist ravens
Who act so stubborn and so phony moaning
Until they get to act like such cruel bores
They poke your shoulder until it bleeds more
Then, you grab them by their brittle wings
And throw them out the door
Or they are struck by pendulum swings
Never, never, Nevermore
I won’t kill you. I won’t eat your metaphors
I’ll just make you a part of my stark folklore.

The Neanderthal man tried to lumber far
From the raven perched on that jam jar
Yet all he could was grunt hungers wail
And try to capture it with a garbage pail
He was trapped in the raven’s basement
Painting his dreams on the caves wall
Even in his head the bird knew how to stall
The clock was ringing the rats were ready to brawl
The raven was chanting oh! Cave man soon you will bawl
The spirits will prance upon your brain’s pavement
Anointing him with the claw of his sacrament
His eyes were cracked. Paranoia would call.

Annabel Lee, Annabel Lee, where’s the apothecary?
I’ll conquer like a worm in my haunted palace
No! Don’t make jokes about my tiny phallus
Like yours is one powerful mercenary
You realize the spirits in my head
Have been shivering in kaleidoscopic dread?
At the prospect of falling in that black pit
Wait! I’m alone, I’m gullible, I’ll have a fit
Do you believe in abnormal psychology?
Because I just named my black cat Pathology
I saw my other half licking a bloody axe in the mirror
Why doesn’t anything seem to be coming clearer?

by Micah Zevin (2007 )