By Donna Fitzgerald
The vampire is in the living room
With the chain-smoking
Self-promoting babysitter
The priest sweeps the ashes with a broom
The tempest is in the teapot
And she getting bitter
The doctor has no remedy for doom
The nurse holds the basin
To catch all the waste in
To place in the recycling bin
Of motherless children
The cobwebs in the bedroom
Resemble the groom
The painter is whitewashing the sins
Of the Gainesboro girl’s evil twin
The grandmother in wolf skin
Is getting her hooks in
Setting her books in
The disciplining room
The farmer is harvester of rejects
The gardener has promises to prune
The therapist is harbinger of secrets
The martyr is forester of gloom
The boyfriend is attractive to insects
The best friend, the man in the moon
The dish ran away with the houseguest
The cook is putting salt in the wound
The gatekeeper is the late sleeper
The finder and keeper
Of everything useless
The toothless old hag with a bag
Full of excuses
Loosens the gags
On the braggarts and stupid
Who swear that they’re telling the truth
The father of failure is a trailer hitch
For a disabled car in a gravedigger’s ditch
Disciple of doggerel
The mongrel of a bitch
A spineless old man
With a hickory switch
Who bit off more than he could chew.