I couldn't help but to picture the scene as I read. That was an incredibly close call. You could have ended up in a plastic drum of formaldehyde instead of writing prose. I think that's a fact tha't quite lost on some of the other readers here. Glad you're still with us, Mark.
I knew a brunette gal that was really in love with this weird dude.
He made her sit in the back seat of his Volkswagen, the passenger seat had been taken out "Because of an accident".
Nobody that knew them liked him, and thought he was getting her into something she didn't understand, but her family had enough money to keep her out of trouble.
When Ted Bundy was put in prison, she forked out all kinds of money help him.
She left Seattle, and moved to Florida, and I lost track of her.
This was a very well-written poem. Thanks for sharing. I love the fact that the title adds context to an otherwise simple and ordinary scene. I also loved the way that you highlighted the fact that Jeffrey tipped the bartender and bought you a replacement drink, forcing us, the readers, to consider all the ways that we too might unwittingly moralize and/or pigeon-hole strangers based on very limited knowledge or social interaction.
I met a PA at GHC a few years ago that had been on the medical staff at the Columbia Correctional Institute in Wisconsin the morning Dahmer was "bludgeoned to death." According to him, the bluggeoned part was a cover for the real way Mr. Dahmer met his demise. Let's just say it was poetic justice in the extreme.
Have to confess I mixed up Jeffery Dahmer with Dennis Nilsen in my mind so spent the first three stanzas confused about why you were referring to Milwaukee instead of Muswell Hill.
I knew a brunette gal that was really in love with this weird dude.
He made her sit in the back seat of his Volkswagen, the passenger seat had been taken out "Because of an accident".
Nobody that knew them liked him, and thought he was getting her into something she didn't understand, but her family had enough money to keep her out of trouble.
When Ted Bundy was put in prison, she forked out all kinds of money help him.
She left Seattle, and moved to Florida, and I lost track of her.
Have to confess I mixed up Jeffery Dahmer with Dennis Nilsen in my mind so spent the first three stanzas confused about why you were referring to Milwaukee instead of Muswell Hill.