Jolene (The Raven)

In (very slightly late) celebration of Dolly Parton and Edgar Allen Poe’s shared birthday

Once upon a midnight weary, I had woken, blinking, bleary,

For my love had startled me awake from jumbled anxious dreams.

He tossed and turned beside me, and his voice had petrified me;

Softly cried he, but I heard it loud as any fearsome scream—

Just one word sat me upright, holding back a bottled scream—

When he called her name: Jolene

-

Oh! The name I'd tried forgetting, from the night I was regretting;

It was my suggestion to go out and shake up the routine.

The bar was loud and smoky, thick with booze and karaoke,

Crowded with all kinds of folk; we got a beer and watched the scene;

Watched a woman take the mic and in a moment steal the scene—

Watched the room hush for Jolene

-

So distinctly I remember; she, her hair as red as embers,

Warm as firelight in December, with a lustrous auburn sheen—

As she danced, she seemed to glimmer, and the world around was dimmer;

Outshone by she who shimmered with the heat of kerosene—

Who swayed in dance as dangerous as the drip of kerosene—

She who calls herself Jolene.

-

The evening was near finished and my vigour quite diminished

When I looked up from my drink to see his eyes wide and a-gleam.

There she was, Venus almighty; avatar of Aphrodite

As she touched him oh-so-lightly, she confirmed herself his Queen—

In her voice as soft as summer rain, proclaimed herself his Queen—

All in two words: “I'm Jolene."

-

So swift did she accost him I scarce realised I had lost him

Till I met her gaze and found myself subsumed in the serene.

And so now I write this letter; common sense could tell me better,

But my heart was wrought unfettered by your eyes of emerald green.

Spring is captured there, awaiting, in your eyes of emerald green—

And he cannot compete with you, Jolene