The Barman
The Investigator

The walls are covered in sure sign of retrograde,
As former stains and posters, at sun's mercy, start to fade.
And what they were were merely memories that once have passed,
As water every two million years will have been gas.

Yet delight in dancer's faces in low light without erasure,
Ensures the coming tape and glue of something new in nature;
Well same same, or so-so, with only newish tints,
Perhaps informed of light there shall be a cracking glint.

Well likely not, as light does not, travel far within,
The windows, too, are boarded by a film of breath and gin.
But I'll provide the razor if you're keen to scrape away,
Just know there is no way beside the way a ways away.

Then show me it up close, for your forays into the abstract,
Do not calm the sobbing streets or bring me close to contact
With an even ounce of evidence referring to our Eve,
Indulge me: did you see her enter or her leave?

Did you see her dance or did you pour her any drink?
By god! I implore you, stop your tasks and simply think.
This sticky, inside air is like disease unto your head,
As your widowed memories were surely once the freshly-wed.

Silly man, I've told you: better luck in waterhole,
To pick apart a drop from dust that water's swole.
Wring me out in both directions and do all that you can do,
My stay's obligatory; my shift will end at two.

I'll turn my knuckles white pursuing petty pinch of dribble,
My party's asking questions; they're unkind to common quibbles.
Now tell me - a sloven spritz of mist shall quench my thirst -
Recount the time you gazed upon the lady in the first.

What more can I say that I haven't already?
Beautiful woman; of those there are plenty.
Do you walk on beaches by moonlight in night,
caressing the leeches, ensuring they're right?

No. To numerate scenes that I've seen,
The vomit, the fighting, the distant obscene?
The sweat or the hair, and the piss on the floor,
The bloodiest ooze from beneath a closed door?

No; of coursen't, the course's been set,
My conscience is dry so long glasses are wet.
I set wetted sight onto moon far above,
I set spotted specs my desk in search of

That everlasting: never flees like a flea,
Bouncing 'tween hounds of what we oughtn't be.
And so I polish thorough, with alcoholic admixture,
Scrubbing at my lens for non-phenomenonic fixture,

The periodic pigeon has flown into my window,
As it was open, I 'suppose so the wind blows,
To cool off the sweat on the back of our necks,
Of a guilty labor done only for checks.

But in my Inn, my stuffy cavern, birds can never stay;
They provide the music freely but of course can never pay.
Clandestine ornithology like singing for the mind,
But destined just like Icarus for hymns of his design.

In holy books I spot some passing looks just like my life,
Hardly mirrored in the sacred, lesser so upon the light,
More in immolation, the evil flagellating man,
As a fistful of moths are crushed within my hand.

But riddle me this, my dear Scotland Yard,
As I'm but a man who'd rather not starve;
If I ceased to pour, then I'd become poor,
And surely some other'd open his doors?

The summer of insect's succinct in its ending,
A funeral which'd be a petty method of spending,
Both effort and currency, 'tis better to forget –

No fool can wade in water without getting wet.

Are you a ticklish conductor,
Orchestrating music of ship sinking under?
Or are you the conductor of train of whose rails
Have been laid such that only one man might prevail?

You're failing already in being concise,
I beg and implore you, what happened that night?
You speak of the bird, ought I to interpret,
That that may have meant you have spotted our culprit?

Within my mind's eye, I've told not a lie.
Externally seeking's to live and then die.
The comfort you seek for the woman you've lost
Cannot be sought in quantifiable cost.

But paradox, what's your worldiest wisdom,
But architect's plan for erecting a prison?
Your question: Do I recall one singular feature?
The final answer: "No," with honesty of a preacher.

So worry not for facilities I haven't got,
Again I'll repeat it: my memory's shot.
What latent significance idle bestowed?
For her being here, she'd be just a toad.

What maddening agony you've punished me with,
What artisan way to suggest she's a bitch!
I caution, tread careful with clevermost phrase
Vocabulary's a log for leveraging rage.

The amputator ought fly with only one of two wings,
'Twould only be fair in the cycle of things.
As for me, honestly, I'm impartial she's missing:
It's to the party's interests that I am submitting.

Exactly which party is it you belong?

A party that dances to a far different song.

The Hypocrite, always tactful in refutation
Only when it suits him. As for her reputation
I'm not convinced of your distance from her
So tighten the gap so that we might confer.

And what of these "sobbing streets" that you have recounted?
My ears only taste giggles whenever they're outed.

You've caught me. Call me a fool, never a liar,
In morals and in ego, the latter's fire can inspire.
I've plenty of fuel in the feud which we partake,
The taste of which is still upon my tongue like venom's snake.

As for your ears, they just must be crusted to the brim,
- Fitting for a man in occupation of his sin.
So excuse my fancy footwork as I flee from questionnaire,
As I'm meant to be the one loading up the snares!

En guarde. Call me a liar never a fool;
But I've never heard a single song sung for this ghoul -
I mean girl. Clearly, for all her grave glory,
It's merely pocket lint to dispose of her story?

Or shall I go on, insulting common whore
Alive of your indifference? But shan't it be a bore
Of no significance to comment on the passing vermin?
Yet you receive as if I've desecrated holy sermon.

What good it'd be to double down on what I know is fact?
I am simply a scholar: untrained in how to act.
It exceeds likelihood that in your philistinic ways,
You've simply slipped the whispers through your mittens. Anyways!

Whatever! To name my party's only to refuge in superfluity
In your arguments, less than half have got to do with me.
And haven't you considered that the work shall be clandestine?
For all your walking wit you lack an inch of wisdom stepped-in.

Now! We speak too much; sharpening wrong swords,
I need a knife to peel the sticky papers off the boards.
To your final question: indulge a lad in a little gift?
Consider it a bridge to stroll across our little rift.

Bof! - A decorum the way we're sanctified.
A knife. Freshly sharpened from the other side.

Although the shreds you're searching surely lack a trace
Of productivity to reunite you with your grace,
I applaud your battle and your stamina in awe,
Not every ordinary man can produce the gall

To peel the walls of away in fulfillment of his mission,
Usually it's life that has us beat into submission.
So I'll clap and bet myself that you'll somehow find
The complete manifestation of your odd design.