Original Poem: The Exterminator's List of Things to Do

My husband and I were watching MSNBC one night this week. I began to feel ill when I saw Tom DeLay's face on the TV screen. (Shouldn’t he be locked up in prison somewhere in Texas?) Just looking at the man’s face brings on a feeling of malaise. The needle on my barfometer went haywire!

I decided to let Tom, the ex pest exterminator, be the subject of an original poem for Poetry Friday this week. I wrote this poem for Tricia's Monday Poetry Stretch - Macaronic Verse. Here’s my macaronic verse in which the second language consists of words I made up.

The Exterminator’s List of Things to Do
or
A Typical Workday for Tom Delay
by Elaine Magliaro

Snurl the snails
And slimy slugs.
Sonk the sow
And doodlebugs.

Flurk the flies,
Gnink nasty gnats,
Wurf the wasps
With baseball bats.

Smoot and smash
The millipedes.
Erk the earwigs,
Centipedes.

Burb the beetles
Munching roses…
Mothy larvae
Chewing clotheses.

Murch the mantis
When she’s preying
On her mate…and
Then start spraying

Bugs wrapped up
In balls of spittle.
Grunch the grubs
Now while they’re little.

Arf the aphids
Sucking sap…
Then borp ’em
With my baseball cap.

Tumb the termites
Gnawing lumber,
Ant queens reigning
In the umber.

Derch those dung-heap
Democrats
Who’ll raise your taxes.
Rotten rats!

(Best I’m able
To determine
They’re just a pack
Of human vermin.)

Quell MY head lice
With shampoo.
Lord, I’ve so much
Work to do!!!

A tidbit of wisdom from Tom DeLay on the causes of the Columbine High School massacre:
"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."

Yuh…right!!!

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At Blue Rose Girls, I have one of my favorite poems—Pot Roast by Mark Strand.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Mommy’s Favorite Children’s Books.