A Poe Emulation - TV Tropes Forum

I decided to turn The Telltale Heart into a Poe-emulation poem. Thoughts/Critiques much appreciated.

The Telltale Heart

You could not have called it passion.

Without fanfare, without fashion

did I endeavor to conclude the old man’s stay on mortal earth.

Not for money. Not for pleasure.

Not for any petty treasure.

‘Twas the old man’s vulture eye which gave my crime it’s tempting worth.

It was this eye, this hated eye, a filmy milky staring blue

like so much emptiness and coldness in a reeking swirling rue

Slowly louder grew the noises, some from heaven, most from hell

And his gaze began to haunt me like an ever-tolling bell

Long in coming was a murder, for my hatred built up slow,

But the old man and his eye

It had to die

yes that old filmy vulture eye would have to go.

I did it slow, I planned my crime

No lunatic would take such time

For several nights I took a lantern to his chamber in the night

but in his sleep there was no staring

Just an old man, kind and caring

Nothing tempted me to murder, nothing stalled my guilty flight

Still every midnight found me waiting

for each daylight I spent hating

Until at last the man was wakened by my stealthy shadow’s creep.

In his deformity my lantern burned

his heavy bed I overturned

The mattress closed his filmy eye and crushed him back to sleep.

It was not quick though, and not easy

I’ll admit myself right queasy

as a strange and steady throbbing seeped up to me through the floor.

Like a drumbeat long forgotten

like a ticking wrapped in cotton

But the mattress did its job in time, the old heart beat no more.

After that my plan was clean

I simply wedged the corpse between

The floorboards and the ceiling of the room that came below.

My demeanor gave no warning

to the cops that came that morning.

I was smiling, I was happy, of my crimes you’d never know,

but those damned cops lingered long

The air felt thick, the clock ticked wrong

And in a second that took days I knew there was no clock in sight.

As the meeting dragged on longer

and the ticking noise grew stronger

and I knew that was no ticking, but the throbbing I had ended in the night.

Like a drumbeat long forgotten

like a ticking wrapped in cotton

When I shouted over the din I knew my sins I must impart.

“I confess it, villains, hear and heed

as I admit the wretched deed

Now tear away the planks and stay the beating of his heart!”

But never the heart will silent lie

for never the memories shall die

and every night I dream

I dream a filmy vulture eye.