Nathan was a lonely boy, his folks were never home

In lieu of their affection, in his poor town section

the back alleys of tenement slums he would roam

 

He did brilliantly in school, not smart enough to play the fool

So dumber older boys would beat him and generally mistreat him

and even his drunken mother said things both mean and cruel

 

Nathan grew up anyway, well sort of, one could say,

didn’t care for women, didn’t like to go swimmin’

never watched sports games and was never known to play.

 

But he did find one thing thrilling, and smiled happily while animal killing

torturing them slowly for fun, cutting them into pieces when done

and as Nathan matured, rest assured, for the next phase he was eagerly willing

 

Years rolled on, his humanity mostly gone, until one fateful newsworthy day

Cops found in his grimy basement, beneath an old casement,

sixteen bodies, more or less, bones scattered, embedded in the clay

 

The trial was a sensation, and of course rocked the nation

Soon sociopath Nathan was in a small cell, not really doing all that well

but still smiling at the fame given to his name as he’d posed at the police station

 

Some soft-hearted/headed liberal judge of course was soon begged to budge

and commute poor Nathan’s sentence because of his overtly pious penance,

the con’s proven drill for the legal shill, becoming another born-again drudge.

 

So if one day you hear a ring at your bell, look outside first, you can never tell

because Nathan smiles and sells bibles today, door to door so they say

And if you let him in, he just might revert to sin, before he finally goes to Hell.