In honor of Edgar Allen Poe (and his poem The Raven) and in memory of the crickets that like to appear in my home every year (a moment of silence for them, please), around this time:

The Cricket: A Semi-unOriginal Poem.

Once upon a midnight sleeping As I lay my head a dreaming
And my features had all the seeming of a person who’s about to snore
When then a breathing, turning, yawning heard I the sound of chirping
A loud, tumultuous chirping: outside my bedroom door
“It’s the kiddies” I muttered “this it is and nothing more”
“It must only be the kiddies, awake too early: no more.”

Ah, I remember ’twas in the Month of August (near September)
When each and every family member slept (because it was four)
Yet this infernal blasted chirping, as if some small twerp or bug thing
Had managed an orchestra to implore
And play Beethoven’s Ninth outside my chamber door.
The evil of this chirping occurring out my door.

Suddenly that blasted chirping, my senses full alerting,
Ripped me from my dreams of flirting on distant sandy shores
“What” said I, “is that bleating? some creature that is repeating
a sound that is teeming with sleeping nevermore
A blasted evil chirping outside my chamber door
A blasted evil chirping right outside my door.”

Quickly out I fumbled, from my bed I suddenly tumbled,
stumbled and with a groaning rumble I tore open my bedroom door
And on the floor before me hopping, a small insect (it’s sound not stopping)
A tiny cricket gone a-hopping tearing across my bedroom floor
It ran beneath my bed-frame, hiding there upon the floor.

Turning I did mutter, my robes a flagrant flutter
as I turned with a shudder away from my chamber door
The mystics will respect me, the heavens I’ll implore
As with patience (to the saints befitting) this foul creature I’ll ignore
Yes, thought I, back to bed and this creature I’ll ignore

Chirp, it said, Chirp (repeating)
Chirp the chirping from the shadows the sound soared
Chirping Chirp and Chirping Chirping and for-chirping still (and more!)
Chirping Chirp chirp blasted Chirping
And my dreams (then promised) to be returned nevermore
Yes my poor sleep and dreaming (Chirp) to return, nevermore.
“Thing of Evil (Chirp)Be you prophet (chirp) or devil!
By that heaven that bends (chirp) us – by that (chirp) we both adore;
Tell this (chirp) with sleepy laden, if with(chirp) the distant (chirping)
It shall (chirp) a sainted (chirping) whom the (chirp-chirp) named (chirp chirp)!
“Stop (chirp)terrupitng when I’m rhyming (Chirp), I implore”
And the Cricket chirps some more.

“Be that (chirp) our sign of (chirp)ing; bug or fiend!” I shrieked (chirp)ing
Get thee out of my bedroom and into the (chirp chirp chirp chirp) door
Leave no (chirp chirp chirp) of that (chirp) that soul has (chirp)
Blast, quit interrupting me: I said no more!
Quoth the cricket as it chirped along some more.

And the cricket, never flitting, still is chirping and its sitting
Beneath the frame of my bed upon my chamber floor
And his antennae have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming
And the shadows o’er him streaming as his orchestra he performs
And my head from down at the sofa, outside my chamber door
With the pillows a lifting from my head: nevermore.