October 26: Poet of the Week, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Haunted Palace," "Ives" Dip, Off the Top of My Head

In keeping with the spirit of the season, I have chosen Edgar Allan Poe as the Poet of the Week.  After my Halloween poetry reading last week, where I read "The Raven," it really was a no-brainer for me.

Most people only know Poe's "The Raven," and maybe "Annabel Lee."  There's a little more to Poe than that.  For instance:

The Haunted Palace

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.

There's more to Poe than black birds and swinging pendulums.  He isn't taught enough in college classrooms, in my opinion.  Any author who achieves any sort of success becomes an object of ridicule and scorn by the academics.  In order to be a real artist, I guess you have to be destitute, mentally ill, and suffering from ringworm.  (Not that Poe didn't have his share of troubles.  He certainly did.  But he was also fairly well known during his lifetime.)

Anyway, Edgar Allan Poe and a little Halloween verse.

It is Ives dip Monday.  I do not have a whole lot of time to pose a deep, meaningful question about the inner machinations of the universe.  Instead, I'm just going to ask,

Is Donald Trump an idiot?

And the answer from Oscar Hijuelos:

Whatever had happened, it reinforced his feelings that a God existed . . . and yet?  Weighing the possible meaning of what he had experienced that Christmas season, he believed that he had been privy to the inner workings of God.  He was not crazy and had not come easily to that conclusion, his route having been circuitous and riddled with doubts and terrifying thoughts...

So Donald Trump is not crazy, and God exists.  Well, Hijuelos got it half-right tonight.

President Trump--now there's a Halloween scare for Saint Marty.

Off the Top of My Head