In the bowels of the busy city Where the frightened never show Still hearing that sad and haunting song Walter struck yet again some nights ago.
Cities often breed men like Walter For it’s where the vulnerable stay They’re poor and defenceless and easier meat For people like Walter to steal them away.
But life’s full of irony as Walter found out And to a sticky end he did come For he picked on a man who was much worse than he And his end was far from humdrum.
His end had come, he was no more His crimes had caused such grief But none of Walter’s victim’s friends Felt anything but relief.
Albert Fish, born 1870, the Brooklyn Vampire, an example of a ‘Walter’.
Walter never understood what he had done wrong In his head he heard only a sad haunting song He sat in the courtroom as he had been bidden All sense of the seriousness from him was hidden.
His mother had left him when he was but a child His father he’d not known, they said he was wild And to the children’s home where he had been placed He was often returned after some strange disgrace.
To him it was natural, he liked to trap rats And later dissect them, and the dogs, and some cats But the thrill of small creatures was beginning to bore So he turned then to people, once one, then lots more.
They followed him willingly when he offered the treat Of a room in his house as opposed to the street Then he drugged them and tied them as they lay asleep And cut them to pieces just like he did sheep.
His total was forty as far as they could tell They had come to his house because of the smell He’d eaten some of them and the taste was so good And Walter was especially fond of the blood.
Now here he sat quietly for the jury to see This ‘disgusting murderer’ who ate people for tea And he hummed the strange song that he heard in his head Wondering who he could eat before going to bed.
Each day when they finished he was taken away And locked in a small room so he couldn’t stray And it never occurred to him that he had done wrong As he sat and he rocked and he hummed his sad song.
Jovis on a Journey... 