Nightmares Do Come True

We”ll put blood red into your bangs
Sharpen your teeth into fangs
Untanning beds that never fail
To get that whiter shade of pale

And ensure that our manicures
Will file your nails into claws
A widow’s peek will look divine
Once we dye it black #9

And trim that devilish goatee
Since Friday’s buy one get one free
Get the look you always wanted
Suicide chic or downright haunted

See Xena at our zombie station
For the latest in disintegration
Drop down dead, ready to rock it
Egg beaters, electric sockets

Guarantee that perfect flare
To Bride of Frankenstein your hair
And Lilith truly is a whiz
At taming down that werewolf frizz

So now what can we do for you
Here at ‘Nightmares Do Come True’
Nervously I smile at him
“I was thinking…just a trim.”

The Last Oreo

Oh never mind the moaning and
The groaning in the hall
That’s only our ghost Doris who
We do not mind at all

We tried and tried to help her I’m
Afraid we did our best
But we were not successful in
Putting her soul to rest

So now she haunts our hallways
Every midnight without fail
So please sit down and I’ll relate
Unto you her sad tale

Doris rushed through every meal
Her passion quite overt
But not for her dull food she yearned
But for that of dessert

Perhaps a habit she picked up
Eating her mother’s cooking
Who told her she should eat her meat
Lest she could have her pudding

Or maybe lots of siblings who
Left her feeling bereft
If they took desserts before hers
And so there was none left

Or maybe she thought that her cakes
Her ice creams and sorbets
Would one day magically grow legs
And up and walk away

So Doris in her kitchen stood
Like one facing starvation
With food not really eaten one
Might call it inhalation

And little did she know she would
Meet her maker that day
At the hands of a chicken bone
That went down the wrong way

They found her two days later
Rigor mortis had set in
One stiffened hand poised on her throat
One on the cookie tin

And now she wonders through the halls
Focused, on high alert
Her soul will not be laid to rest
Until that last dessert

Of course we tried to help her sure
No reward would be greater
We offered every sweet and tart
In our refrigerator

But soon we realized our attempts
Would only go to waste
Doris no longer had the means
To chew, swallow or taste

And that my friend does mark the end
Of Doris’ sad story
Condemned to spend eternity
In Dessert Purgatory

Where Bad Tricks Go To Die

The awkward silence fills the hall
Another ill timed pause
That’s broken by a charitable
Smatter of applause

As The Fantastic Felix pulls
Another from the deck
To be told by the audience
That too is incorrect

A handcuffing that goes awry
Illusions that fall flat
As Felix manages to pull
Some lint out of his hat

But was it extreme pity or
Part of God’s divine plan
That made me bow to his request
By raising up my hand

When he said “From the audience
I’ll need a volunteer
For my next feat I will make
A human disappear.”

Next thing I know I’m up on stage
With Felix softly cussing
A slew of magic words amount
To absolutely nothing

And just when I am thinking why’d
I say yes to this weirdo
I hear him as he chants the words
“Presto change disappearo!”

I’m falling through a hallway
Catapulting to my doom
And soon I am transported to
A dark and dreary room

With a gloomy sign that reads
“Abandon here all hope”
I follow paths of yards and yards
Of strewn colorful ropes

Guillotines and large boxes
With easy open backs
Linking rings and barrels
Quarters covered with ear wax

Dogeared playing cards dispersed
Rabbits jump, doves fly
And soon I know I’m in the place
Where bad tricks go to die

And though I kicked and screamed at first
Now I am resigned
I may have been here months or weeks
I’ve since lost track of time

But I suppose it could be worse
The context of my doom
After all I could be like
My poor girlfriend here June

Who’s ’round to keep me company
And good for a few laughs
As we while away eternal
Searching for her other half

 

Memoirs of An Undertaker

Oh yes I do remember when we buried poor aunt Jean
She’d gone from a size 0 up to a size 14
That’s why we told the family we didn’t think it best
To bury her in her most favorite slinky cocktail dress
No amount of alterations really made for a clean line
As she hadn’t worn that dress since 1989
But they did not appreciate my well meant intervening
And so the word ‘viewing’ would take on a whole new meaning.

And remember that time when we picked up grandpa Ned
He died one night so peacefully right in his own bed
But I’m sure the family found our technique rather shoddy
Our laughable ineptness at attempts to move the body
I had him round the arms, Johnny had him round the knees
A coffee table in the way and an ill timed sneeze
Well let’s just put it this way, I never thought I’d say
You’re grandfather’s body is wedged in the stairway

And some stop and wonder how I work with these conditions
The eyes that sink, the mouths that gape, the bodily emissions
Amazed at how it is that daily I don’t blow a gasket
With angry relatives who tussle right into the caskets
Dismembered body pieces, putty, wax and string it’s set
Until they can be propped up much like a marionette
Oh I must admit it isn’t easy to be me
But there’s something to be said about job security