Dick's Latest Creation and a Scary Poem

Every year it's the same. My dear husband puts off carving pumpkins until the last minute, but when he gets to it he throws heart and soul into the project. Personally, I am scared of sharp objects, convinced I'll slice off a finger while handling an Exacto blade, or even a kitchen knife. I have a little hand saw that works pretty well... Anyway, he claims to have thought about this all year. My dopey smiling jack-o-lantern is nothing memorable, but his snowman made from three stacked pumpkins sports charcoal for eyes, nose, mouth and buttons. There's no way to light it, which is a disappointment to me, since lit pumpkins are what I like best. Anyway, he's proud as punch, so I decided to show the world.

Here's a little poem that's quite a tongue twister from my days of teaching English.

Ravin's of a Piute Poet Poe

by C.L. Edson

(Scholastic Magazine, 1963)

Once upon a midnight dreary -- eerie, scary -- I was wary;

I was weary, full of sorry, thinking of my lost Lenore.

Of my cheery, eerie, faery, fiery dearie -- nothing more.

I lay napping when a rapping on the overlapping coping

woke me -- grapping, yapping, groping -- I went hopping,

leaping!, hoping that the rapping on the coping

was my little lost Lenore.

That, on opening the shutter, to admit the latter critter,

in she'd flutter from the gutter, with her bitter eyes aglitter.

So I opened wide the door -- what was there?

The dark wier and the drear moor -- or, I'm a liar!:

The dark mire, the drear moor, the mere door ...

And nothing more.

Then in stepped a stately raven, shaven like the Bard of Avon.

Yes, a shaven, rovin' raven seeking haven at my door.

And that grievin', rovin' raven had been movin' (get me, Steven?!)

For the warm and loving haven of my stove and oven door.

Oven door and ... nothing more!

Ah, distinctly I remember, every ember that December

Turned from amber to burnt umber. (I was burning limber lumber

in my chamber that December and it left an amber ember.)

With each silken sad uncertain flirtin' of a certain curtain,

That old raven, cold and callous, perched upon the bust of Pallas

just above my chamber door -- a lusty, trusty bust thrust

just above my chamber door.

Had that callous cuss shown malice, or sought solace there on Pallas?

You may tell us, Alice Wallace! Tell this soul with nightmares ridden,

Hidden in the shade and broodin', if a maiden out of Eden

Sent this sudden bird invadin' my poor chamber

(and protrudin' half an inch above my door!).

Tell this broodin' soul (he's breedin' bats by so much sodden readin'--

Readin' Snowden's "Ode to Odin"!) ...

Tell this soul with nightmares ridden if -- no kiddin'! --

on a sudden, he shall clasp a radiant maiden born in Aiden

(or in Leyden, or indeed in Baden-Baden) ...

Will he grab this buddin' maiden, gaddin' in forbidden Eden,

Whom the angels named Lenore? And that bird said, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet", cried I, "thing of evil, navel, novel, or boll weavil,

You shall travel! On the level! Scratch the gravel now, and travel --

Leave my hovel, I implore!"

And that raven, never flitting (never knitting, never tatting,

never spouting Nevermore) still is sitting (out this ballad!)

On the solid bust, and pallid -- on the vallid, pallid, bust

Above my chamber door.

And my soul is in the shadow which lies floating on the floor --

Fleeting, floating (yachting, boating) on the fluting of the matting,

Matting of my chamber door!

[And that's all there is, and nothin' more!]