Living Just A Mile Away From Edgar Allan Poe... Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

There's a Town about a mile
just east of where I live,
called Bronxville, though-
the community is far north
of the Bronx. Affluent, and
a tad Clintonish, but also
rich in history, in fact,
a few of our Classic Poets
were born and/or lived there
in their early childhood.
And, tho' they'd never mention
the Town by name, it was
obvious that Bronxville
had an influence in stories
and styles of their work
and careers as Poets and Writer's.
And, this all crossed my mind
as I rode down the serpentine
of old Pondfield Road,
and passed the exact spot
where a boy named Edgar
spent a very few years
'fore moving to New England
and becoming a lauded scribe,
pioneering Macabre style,
Fathered the Mystery Story
while battling the many cruel
dungeons and dragons
in his romantically cursed,
whiskey drawn in, and-
opium afflicted Mind.

So young he died, just 39,
but with a resume of success
in a myriad of trades,
as if he'd lived a score of lives.
Yet he died without a penny
established to his name,
and was found in a gutter
in downtown Boston City,
with a bottle not too far
from where he took to rest.


'was in fact only last year
that I came to find this out,
at the Bronxville Library,
one balmy June evening
that just a walking mile
east of where I live,
once lived a young boy
who'd revive and redesign
literature, its style,
and forever change the way
people.... like you and me
use our keen Mind's Eye
to create, and deliver
contemporary free-verse
that this Poet, Author,
and Editor In Chief would
explore and discover some
hundred and thirty plus years
before some Poets of the 50's
and 60's took his torch,
and successfully ran with it.
The boy, the man, the Master
is gone. I had claimed him
as my silent mentor, many
years before I found out-
that the Town about a mile
just east of where I live,
called Bronxville, was once
the home of my own silent mentor,
Edgar Allan Poe. {1801-1840}


FjR-June 1st-2015
3am EST/USA




*Revised 09-22/17
Reposted 10-03-17


Frank James Ryan Jr (FjR)