Edgar Allan Poe

My New Painting..Edgar Allan Poe as a rag doll!

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.' ...EAP

Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path...EAP

I LOVE Edgar Allan Poe, I remember reading him from when I was just a wee youngster and I've never stopped being a fan. I believe as he did  "I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty." He created so much beauty and is such a big part of my love for poetry. I decided that he needed to be a rag doll complete with his bottle of Amantillado and a Raven. This is all done with Acrylic paint on canvas.

Do you see a resemblence?

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. ...EAP

 So dear readers,to quote the Mad Hatter, "Why is a Raven like a writing desk?"

The answer...Because Edgar Allan Poe wrote on both!

Conqueror Worm??

Ok for those of you who know me or follow this blog, you know that I have an unusual sometimes morbid sense of humor. You also know that I love cemeteries and Edgar Allan Poe. Therefore, when I came across the shot below, I had to take it. How often do you get to see a chicken in a cemetery in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles? I know chickens like worms, so it truly make sense that they'd enjoy a nice fat cemetery worm. That in turn made me think of The Conqueror Worm.

"The curtain , a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the Angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man"

And it's hero, The Conqueror Worm."

The moral of this story though dear readers, is that the worm is not really the Conqueror if it gets eaten by the chicken. It is the Chicken, who sups on worms fattened by human remains, (in an extended way, eating us,) who is the Conqueror. In the End, the chickens have their revenge on mankind.

Something to think about, that might be enough to make you lay off chicken huh?

The Raven

The Raven...By Edgar Allan Poe, Photography by Me

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore..

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore-

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word did he out pour...

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still if bird or devil!"..

Leave my loneliness unbroken,...

Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!"

Quote the Raven, "Nevermore!"

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming

And the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor;

Shall be lifted-nevermore!