(no subject)

[mithriltabby]

When I was in my junior year of high school, I took the American Literature course, which was the most advanced available at the time. (The only AP classes we had were Chemistry and Physics.) The class was definitely being adjusted for what the students could cope with— the version of Moby Dick we read was abridged, and the teacher had us skipping through the abridged version. (I was miffed by this and read the real thing; the teacher told me I could use that for a book report if I wished. I also read Catch-22 that quarter and found sufficient similarities between the two books that I reported on both, much to the teacher’s amusement.)

One of the poems we read in class was Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee. We read it out loud in class, and then the teacher asked if anyone had any insights into the poem.

I was a good Max, obsessivewoman. Honest. I waited four beats for anyone to bother to say anything, decided that no one else was going to talk, and offhandedly remarked:

“Well, it’s obviously about necrophilia.”

The teacher busts up. In all her years teaching, no student of hers had ever said that. When one of the other students, rather puzzled by all this, asked “What’s nekkerfilliyuh?” Our teacher was having trouble drawing breath and just gestured to me to define it, much to the horror of the rest of the class.

A couple of years later, in my freshman year of college, I was visiting a friend in her dorm room, and noticed her roommate had the text of Annabel Lee posted on her closet door. The roommate’s expression when I said, “That’s my favorite poem about necrophilia!” was priceless— that moment of perception when a person suddenly sees something familiar in a new light is just delightful.

Three years after that, in my senior year of college, I was chatting with a talented young lady (who has requested to remain anonymous) who had an excellent acquaintance with several of the Muses, though said Muses were likely to be either tanked or hung over at the time. Since she showed an appreciation of demented ideas, I offered her the above reminiscences, which amused her greatly. Some days later, she presented me with a handsome scroll, the text of which I reproduce here:

Scandalously
(with my deepest apologies to Edgar)

It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea
That a poem I’d writ which you might know
By the name of “Annabel Lee”.
And this poem I’d writ with no other thought
Than to indulge in necrophily.

I was a freak and she was a corpse
In this kingdom by the sea;
But I loved with a love that was less than sane
And so I penned a loathsome refrain
Filled with depravity.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
I went out of my mind with wanting
My necrotic Annabel Lee;
So that I one night in darkness came
(A crowbar I bore with me)
To open up her sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

Bacteria, not half so happy in air,
Went envying her beauty.
Yes! - That was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That bacteria came out of the air by night
Moldering and rotting my Annabel Lee.

But my love, it was weirder by far than the love
Of those who were saner than me,
Of many far saner than me—
And neither the bacteria in her corpse
Nor my loathsome depravity
Can ever endeavor to end my want
For the putrescent Annabel Lee.

For a corpse ne’er rots without bringing me thoughts
Of the gangrenous Annabel Lee,
And though she may stink, I still constantly think
Of the carious Annabel Lee—

The coffin lid pried, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my putrefied bride—
In her sepulchre by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

It’s always a delight to inspire artists.

Comments

[cmccurry.livejournal.com]

Ah don't you just love the wrenching sound of somone's perceptions being twisted?