Poe's lesser works: a meditation

So as I lay laid out, sick of
and reading another from Poe's
Tales of the Boring and Preposterous, 
I find myself not much
wondering why

no one ever quotes 
or makes reference
or allusion to this
much-bruited writer's
many satirical sketches 
directed at the mediocrities
and foibles of newspaper 
and magazine publishing 
of his day? Perhaps, as 
they say, the master satirist
runs afoul by a portraiture 
too true. Easy mistake 

to make, one suspects! Most
of this dreck was written to pay
booze bills and keep roof overhead,
no doubt. I say: when you go with Poe,

stick to the big, heavy-hitting,
famous and eerie dreary business
wherein he scored so many hits,
always or usually in the literary
guise of some weird maniac
with a family history of nervous
complaints from the neighbors. 

The kind of guy even the local
birds stop by to croak their cease 
and desist advice to. That's the Poe

who holds up to any amount of
posthumous interest and scrutiny:
a real 

character