Anton Melbye, “Lighthouse at Stora Bält” (1846)

The Lighthouse Keeper

“Creak” go the floorboards
Under harsh, dirty feet,
In weathered old boots,
Far from clean and from neat.

A scruffy white beard,
Untamed and unkempt,
Crusted with salt,
And from years of neglect.

The tides crash violent
On the rocks down below,
Where the dark foamy waters
In a salty mist blow.

A beacon of light,
From the tower does shine,
A warning to sailors,
To keep them from brine.

In this tall, sturdy house
Lay an old, wrinkled sleeper;
A lonely old man,
Whom we call the lighthouse keeper.

I know of no name,
But that he there was bound,
Till the night he was freed,
And the night there I drowned.

Elizabeth in the Bushes

“Mommy what’s in the bushes,”
Little Anne Bersinger said.
There they found Elizabeth Short,
Frightfully pale and dead.

A Wednesday afternoon,
Was when her body was found;
Ghostly white as a mannequin,
Not a drop of blood on the ground.

A permanent, grotesque smile,
Scarred across her face;
At South Norton Avenue,
That there was the place.

Poor Elizabeth Short,
Her body was split in two;
A beautiful black dahlia,
Whose death was early due.

The Deaths Of Cielo Drive

Red painted Ramblers out on the drive,
Slumping cold and quiet.
Bloody lawns and finger-print buttons,
Silence before the riot.
Barking dogs and hysterical maids,
A crimson house well kept.
Early stopped hearts wrapped in a bow,
Strewn about a pampered crypt.
Quite a scene found by police,
A body count of five.
The outcome of a dreadful night,
The deaths of Cielo Drive.