They Died with Their Shucson
A killer on death row in Tucson
They strapped in the chair; turned the jucson.
Their electric bill soared
(Which they couldn’t afford)
So the next guy they just used a nucson.
The Suicide Bomber
The suicide bomber considers it cool
To martyr himself as the Grim Reaper’s tool—
A one-act performance. No encore. No bow.
(Seventy virgins are stuck with him now.)
Eye-Rhyme Limericks
Van the Vampire ingested no food,
Yet he thirsted for somebody’s blood.
With his teeth at the throat
Of a poor helpless Croat,
Van was stabbed with a stake made of wood.
Grumpy subway commuters, to prove
They are macho, will jostle and shove.
In a terrible rush,
They will elbow and push
While the rest of us wish that they drove.
The bomb squad, expected to comb
The airport in search of a bomb,
Decided to plead
For a smoke-break instead
And the terminal now is their tomb.
Just last week I was feeling so close
To the Bachelor, who gave me a rose.
But this week I got none
And next week I’ll be gone.
Kill the b*st*rd! (I can’t stand to lose.)
In the throes of profound anomie,
Lou and Liz were so bored they could die
Till she put on her bustier
And his lust became lustier
(For he couldn’t resist lingerie).
Bob McKenty’s verses have appeared in numerous periodicals that have either gone out of print (The Critic, Datamation, The Formalist, Marriage & Family Living, McCall’s, Manhattan Poetry Review, and The New York Daily Mirror), or discontinued poetry (The American Journal of Nursing, The New York Times “Jersey Diary, ” Reader’s Digest ‘s “Picturesque Speech,” and The Wall Street Journal’s “Pepper…and Salt”), and in books that have gone out of print. But for the past 25 years, he has still been unable to sink Light.