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This poem is dedicated to three Americans
whom everyone believes to be English:
Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft and Edward Gorey.
Thank you, gentlemen.
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Counting Ravens
James Staples
Shiny black ravens: one, two, three….
How man ravens can you see?
One for sorrow, two for mirth,
Three for a funeral; four for a birth.
Five is for sunshine, six is for rain.
Seven is pleasure, eight is pain.
Nine means sickness, ten bodes well.
Eleven’s Heaven. Twelve is Hell.
Thirteen’s old age. Fourteen’s youth.
Fifteen lies to sixteen’s truth.
Seventeen feet to eighteen’s head….
Nineteen – you're living.
Twenty – you're dead.
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There are loads of really old folk rhymes like this from Britain. Like alphabet rhymes ('A' is for Anthrax, persistent and chronic; 'B' is the plague we know as Beubonic...), they're used to teach kids, even though some of them are almost as creepy as this one. I suspect they started out as divinatory, prophetic devices; incantations used by witches to make predictions based on animal behaviors. Anyway, I wrote this one, because I liked the heavy, gothic tone of it. Enjoy!
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