Happy 210th birthday Charles Dickens

aforementioned author born
February 7, 1812
the long deceased (centuries) storied author
I toot and trumpet virtual horn
accompanying pet rooster
first thing in the morn.

Greetings mutual friend,
hard times dash Great Expectations
in this Bleak House
whereby battle of life ensues
when Sunday chimes
from Master Humphrey’s clock
somber American notes
invoking overshadowing doom
from young gentlemen:

Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge
Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield
and Young Cricket on the hearth Little Dorrit
collaborated on Pickwick Papers
with Dombey and son detailing
how I (a haunted man/
ghost’s bargain) alias Mudfog
self absorbed in his Old Curiosity Shop

hunted down by boyhood days
(akin to an endless Christmas carol
frieze as child’s history)
now a thick dust covered holiday romance
memory portraying this signal-man
(according to George Silverman's explanation)
eerily similar to
the mystery of Edwin Drood,
exiled after his trial for murder

birthing three ghost stories
inhabiting a haunted house
affecting the young couples lamplighter,
an uncommercial traveler
evidenced by pictures from Italy
prone to speeches, sketches
by Boz and his lazy tour
an oft repeated Tale Of Two Cities
best read at dusk.