The Dragon Club
The Dragon by Edgar Allie Hoe
Shitty night yo, close to midnights,
Thinkin’ bout some fucked up shit of yesteryear, you hear me,
Nodding out, but not heroin, someone came prodding,
Breaking down my motherfucking door,
This motherfucker is dead, I shouted over my Tostitos.
Short and fucking sweet.
I ‘member it a shitty as December, out of weed and shrooms,
Each hour made me hallucinate that much motherfucking more.
I was all like tomorrow is the 1st, can’t motherfucking wait to get to check cashing,
From my pulled up floorboards, sorrily lost, my dear crack rock.
For the rare loss is a crack rock, with crackheads searching with tiny vacuums.
Ahh fuck it, as I pulled out another and another.
My balls grew back and I answered the goddamn door.
“Bitch or bitches”, I snapped out,
You best be gone when I open this door or gat you.
I checked the surveillance cam and found only darkness in infrared hues.
I stared and stared, activating the heat sensor setting,
High and wasted, my heart barely beating, I surveilled the area
Wondering what I smoke, what I had said to the dealer,
God could only know as the dealer lay in my tub.
And, damn it if that motherfucker didn’t say “Laquifa!”
And I repeated with a grin, “Fucking Laquifa!?”
So I motherfucking turned around, saying the sherm was kicking in,
And damn did it kick like a mule
Pulled up the shades, dusty and shit,
In there stepped a stately dragon of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony beast beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, `art sure no cdragon.
Ghastly grim and ancient dragon wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
Quoth the dragon, `Nevermore.’
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing beast above his chamber door -
Beast or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.’
But the dragon, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a scale then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.’
Then the beast said, `Nevermore.’
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,’ said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “Never-nevermore.”’
But the dragon still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of beast and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous beast of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous beast of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.’
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,’ I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
Quoth the dragon, `Nevermore.’
`Prophet!’ said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if beast or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!’
Quoth the dragon, `Nevermore.’
`Prophet!’ said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if beast or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?’
Quoth the dragon, `Nevermore.’
`Be that word our sign of parting, beast or fiend!’ I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’
Quoth the dragon, `Nevermore.’
And the dragon, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!
