Life Doesn't Frighten Me

Consider it the poetic version of a remix to a song. I took parts of Edgar Allen Poe's story a Tell Tale Heart and wrote them into a poem.

First of all I dismembered the corpse

He was stone, stone dead

It was not the old man that vexed me, but his evil eye

He had the eye of a vulture �" a pale blue eye, with film over it.

His room was black as pitch with the thick darkness, (the shutters were closed fastened, for fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept on pushing it on steadily, steadily.

He was still up in the bed listening;--just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to death watches in the wall

All in vain; because Death, in approaching him as stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

The disease had sharpened my senses�"not destroyed�"not

dulled them,

It has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo

I undid the lantern cautiously�"oh so cautiously-cautiously (for the hinges creaked)

I cut off the head and the arms and the legs

Tear up the planks! Here, here!

It went down to open it with a light heart�"for what had I now to fear

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears

Like the thread of the spider, shot out from a crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye

Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased

 I gasped for breath

No doubt I now grew very pale

It grew louder�"louder�"louder

Almighty God!�"no, no!

The noise steadily increased

it is the beating of his hideous heart!

he was stone, stone dead

No life doesn’t frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all

No life doesn’t frighten me at all

Reviews

[Paidyn]

an ode to Edgar Allan Poe? I definitely enjoyed its macabre aspects. good job, R. J. :)