Contributor: Michael Seeger

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for Edgar A. Poe

In virtuosic gothic rhyme
And chilling words felt to the bone
You blossomed in a darkened time —

Then left us while still in your prime
A mystery that’s still unknown.
In virtuosic gothic rhyme

And tintinnabulating chime
(Of course, a full moon always shone),
You blossomed in a darkened time —

Though you were hardly paid a dime
for writing what is now well-known —
In virtuosic gothic rhyme!

Now there’s a flowering creeping vine
That twines above your grave’s headstone
And blossoms in a darkened time.

In shadowed beauty, words sublime —
All you loved you loved alone —
In virtuosic gothic rhyme
You blossomed in a darkened time.


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Michael lives with his lovely wife, Catherine, and still-precocious 16 year-old daughter, Jenetta, in a house owned by a magnificent Maine Coon (Jill) and two high-spirited Chihuahuas (Coco and Blue). He is an educator (like his wife) residing in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, California.