(My take on Edgar. It’s all good.)

Edgar Allan Po-etry

I was a lecturer, publisher, editor, and critic
But none an indicator of future glories
As most of my legend and world renown
Come from my poems and chilling short stories

I was a household name author, a lifelong writer
They claim, incalculable was my influence
Though the first American to live by the pen alone
Most of my career was spent fighting indigence

Some credit me for the modern short story
And some say I invented detective fiction
While I apologize for expulsion from West Point
And, my prolific but short life evading eviction

My parents were actors and I was orphaned at 4
I influenced Hitchcock and Dali, but will admit
Even with museums and societies devoted to me
I’ve the only poem with an NFL team named for it

My beloved cat, Catterina, died right after I did
So beautiful, but, in the pen of the beholder
As Catterina, who always rested as I wrote
Making herself comfortable on my shoulder

I once held a record for swimming six miles
And was named after a character from King Lear
They say I innovated the genre of science-fiction
Which, gladly, instilled you with macabre fear

I once petitioned our 10th President, John Tyler
For a job in his wigged administration
And (un)apologetically, I married my cousin
Which, some called a relative abomination

Posthumously dragged through proverbial mud
My career and reputation … mangled and mauled
From a falsely-written newspaper obit
By long-time enemy Rufus Wilmont Griswold

Rufus, the target of one of my critiques
Got revenge in an all-out, end-all exaggeration
Planting the words “drunk, derelict, drug-addled”
Which, influenced opinion since my expiration

My mother, and wife Victoria died of consumption
Those two, and my brother, all died at age 24
And I died due to the electoral crime of ‘cooping’
Me? Edgar Allan Poe here, and I’m ‘Nevermore’

Rob Spina