I found a whole book of monster poems maybe 19 or 20 years ago in the Children’s Section of the library. I don’t remember who the author was, but I’ve kept a copy of this particular poem all these years, because while we were reading the poem, and I was trying to do it in a chilling voice, it suddenly struck us so funny that we started laughing hysterically and I couldn’t get through the poem.

The Ghoul

The gruesome ghoul, the grisly ghoul
without the slightest noise
waits patienty beside the school to feast on girls and boy.

He lunges fiercely through the air
as they come out to play
then grabs a couple by the hair
and drags them far away.

He cracks their bones and snaps their backs
and squeezes out their lungs,
he chews their thumbs like candy snacks
and pulls apart their tongues.

He slices their stomaches and bites their hearts
and tears their flesh to shreds
he swallows their toes like toasted tarts
and gobbles down their heads.

The candy snacks part was already making it hard for me to read, but it was the toasted tarts line that made us bust out laughing. It just seemed so absurd.

It has a few more stanzas, but I guess times have changed — it just doesn’t seem as funny as it did back then. I wonder if it’s still in the library.