There was a sinner man..

The first prompt of the new year 
at dversepoets.com is to choose 
one of the topics for writing from 
last year out of a list.  I chose "listing",
a form of writing that is like a 
catalog or list of thing—an inventory of people, 
places, things, ideas, but it is no simple shopping list or to-do list; must tell a story or make a whole new point.  Some can be beautiful, but I had written this in fun awhile ago and it fits the prompt.


There was a sinner man who had an evil wife -
her favorite tool of choice was a butcher knife;
They had a deadbeat son, who broke all the laws,
their daughter was a troublemaker, wrongdoers all

Good for nothing, ne'er d well ex-convicts,
criminals up to nothing but dirty tricks;
Fugitives on the run, wanted by city hall
What would become of their victims after all?

Hooligans, hustlers, let me find all the words,
they lived as desperadoes when not  jailbirds;
Worse than scalawags, derelicts, delinquents 

recalcitrants, or undeserving miscreants 

Scum of the earth, crooked way beyond the pale, 

no strangers when it came to raising cash bail; 

wanted for multiple transgressions by police -
evildoers, lowlife punks, rascals, bullies 

They made Bonnie & Clyde look like benign thieves, 

shocked no one when they kidnapped their own niece, 

or when they swindled the mayor with high blackmail, 

gunned down anyone who was hot on their trail 

They weren't just black sheep but slippery eels - 

they couldn't run except backwards on their heels 

their ugly mugshots made the news for years 

Finally the judge sentenced them to four lifetimes - Cheers!

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