After reading a few volumes of Poe's work recently, it's desperatly hard not to get sucked into his downward spiral of bleak, dark literature. Accommpanied by long bus rides through industrial England, it's hard to admit that it still relates to this day and age.

Granted a lot has changed since the 1800's, but the dark, gritty theme continues. Although it's rose tinted now, with distractions of Big Brother and the other sludges of activity we for some reason call culture; but looking into the eyes and souls of some people, you can still sense that dispair, the stench of trapped rats sharing breeding/living/toilet mortal space. And yet the distractions are so mindless, the mindless are engrossed by further mindlessness, and left in a dreary state of being, no passion, no specialities, just the empty vessels of what could've been the most beautiful society the Earth would ever behold...Nevermore!

Just to add further meaning...

"If I could dwell,
Where Israfel hath dwelt,
And he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well a mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky".