"Hey man, you know where this Poe house is?"

I cry out in a blatantly pathetic effort to speak African-American street slang to the blue-jean-vested dude with the clichéd duelling pistols stitched on his back of his jacket standing on the corner―after having circled the same street three times... incredulous…

That was after following the arrows that led from one broken-down alleyway to the next before stopping at the local 7/11 and asking directions from the Korean cashier cowering in fear behind the bulletproof shield with the sun blazing in my eyes.

"Yeah, man," the dude with the duelling pistols stitched to his jeaned back replied, "it's that one, just down there, the one all fixed up fancy, with the slanty roof like a church."

"Thanks, man," I reply, spying a steeple-like construction in the midst of these slums, a few painted gaudily, most in shambles, dirty red paint chipping from brick walls, chimneys crumbling stone by stone.

There were winos in the distance in the vast expanse of wreckage and construction scraps, roasting alley rats or some such creature over oil barrels.

I hand him a few quarters as another dude, with saliva dribbling from his mouth, staggers behind him.

To enter, I must step across the quivering body fallen flat upon the doorstep. His flesh is as dusty grey as a doormat; his xanthous eyes roll back within their cherry liquor-soaked pits; his arching back lunges forward to snap buttons from his torn shirt, exposing a shimmering patch of pink pigment—the hues of a dappled hog.

As I approach, the portal suddenly swings open. It sweeps me within, then slams the door shut upon my junky acquaintance, who falls flat on his back, inching in hysterics much like a caterpillar overturned upon the broiling concrete.

This is my red-carpet welcome to a townhouse whose ancient wood reeks like sour wine and whose dingy roof blows cinders through seamless windows.

The docent welcomes me. His pallid skin radiates the phosphor of an albino fish. He twitches in mortal fear like a sentry upon the watchtower, awaiting the next bullet…. In the background I could hear the staccato of wretched hawking.

"Welcome to the abode of E.A. Poe," he recites with a nervous lisp. Once located in a rustic area outside of Baltimore... it was fitting inspiration... for a poet..." Then breaking his non-rhythm, he adds solemnly, "Life has changed sommmmewhat since the old days."

Looking through the tiny window, he adds… "It seems my only protection is to drip honey on the sidewalk so as to attract the yellow jackets and ants… that keeps ‘em from congregating on the steps. But I myself have been stung too many times; now it seems that each time I enter/exit I am introduced ever so cordially to the startled feline eyes of yet a different drunkard.”

In deadly somber tones, he then cautions me to watch my head upon climbing the winding staircase made for men much smaller than those of our generation hyped with excessive dosages of vitamins.

The steps lead to a small room as barren as the ashen fireplace – with who knows what telltale heart buried beneath it. The mantel is decorated with stained Gothic mementos displayed next to slanderous newspaper invectives about you after your death, your body, reeking of booze, found turned over in the gutter―after being used to stuff ballots with the names of the deceased in poll booth after poll booth.

In this pilgrimage to your haunted chambers, my poisoned eye becomes one with your ravenous eye.

A rusty filing hurtles like a dart towards its target. It just misses my pupil, yet punctures the membrane and injects its toxin with the hypodermic of a taxidermist, nevertheless. My right eye, hungover and bloodshot with a bizarre mélange of toxin and spirits, stares through your window.

Your brooding spirit awakes, plume in hand; your ravenous eye, embalmed in the form of a raven's eye, then x-rays the gel of my cranium and pecks at each nook and cranny―but without devouring a single morsel of creative sustenance.

I jot down as many notes as my napkin will sustain―only to watch the ink smear through the entire fabric in pure osmosis.

I become transfixed as you rise before me and wipe your mud-caked boots upon the mat of my shaggy tongue. And without even rapping upon my skull, your spirit glides ever so easily into mine―not at all as I stumbled into this hollow shell of your spiritual dwelling―just as that junky in tattered rags stumbled upon your very doorstep, after chanting as if in a chorus line―halting traffic in a dazzling display of wasted talent.

Coming out of the spell, the visit terminated. I ask directions to your tombstone. And in that same haughty and austere manner – a vain attempt to cover over that drug ghetto fear that he himself may find himself buried beneath these very floorboards – the docent divines a path as if giving me a benediction, blessing me with a safe voyage.

"Why be so frightened", I think to myself, "on the contrary, the milieu is quite apropos, quite, quite, a-pro-poe."

Instantly, once upon the front step, the door is bolted tight. And in making my escape, I dodge hardballs tossed by children between parked cars and nod in gratitude to the dude still hanging out on the street corner.

And behold—as prophesied by daily newspaper rags—upon your cenotaph shining in the sun outside the shade of trees—unseen by passing traffic—lie a bottle and the urine stain of cheap whisky.

There were only two, not three, red roses once carefully placed by that unknown admirer – the “Poe Toaster” dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf who somehow always managed to escape those ever-snooping paparazzi.

Those two flowers were as rotten as the portrait I once painted of you surrounded by ghouls and poisons: My artwork then disintegrated into dust of multi-coloured pastels less than a month after its conception.

I stop before a cheap five-and-dime. The dude with saliva drooling from his mouth, his yellow eyes spinning in circles, dirty linen hanging off his bones, reeking of booze, is dancing in macabre circles in the midst of the store.

He needs a couple of bucks to buy a pair of bright orange sneakers… Now fused with the spirit of Edgar Allen, I could not ignore his request… Resurrected from his cesspool tomb, I never saw a happier man.