To All the Poets I Loved Before (or an Ode to Poetry)

I fell in love with poetry on a sad and stormy night

With my gloomy and pessimistic friend, Poe, who

Showed me a dark and depressing sight

That shows us how the world is cruel and the end of time is true;

Thus, I will not forget you and your eloquent imagery

And to you this poem of images dark is due.

Other great American Poets I have loved too –

Where others feared to tread –

Dickinson and her Mind dared go –

In wake of all the Dead.

Another romantic have I held dear

Whenever the world seems too much to handle

Or my conscious seems unclear;

And that poet is Keats, who always held the candle

On the foggiest and coldest of nights.

A writer whose life ended so suddenly

Couldn’t have left such a mark as this

Where people everywhere know the phrase of “negative capability,”

But seldom know how to take in the sights

Not even during a kiss.