gumshoe
investigates
a sleuth spy for hire
anticipating successes
gumshoe
Sir Edmund Clerihew Bentley
passed away, so he sent me.
He wrote of gumshoe detectives,
and eschewed dumb invectives.
He’s driven forty miles of tough love,
Tempted Dead Man’s curve,
Met old Nick at the crossroads,
Felt the black tar burn.
He took two wrongs, made a right,
Circled left on the radio dial,
Ran the table by the wayside
And got lucky for a while.
He bought a peanut shell and jellyfish sandwich
From a deli called In Cod We Trust,
And a yummy gumshoe cobbler
With a crispy asphalt crust.
He poured rock candy flaming brandy
On a French vanilla traffic cone,
Passed the exit ramp for The Next Big Thing
And had lunch at the rest stop alone.
He’s loaded bucket after bucket full of castle sand
And climbed that desolate hill
To only dump them out of his attention span
And have even more buckets to fill.
This poem will make the most sense if
you’ve watched the old time television series
“Get Smart.”
GUMSHOE IS GLUED
Silence -
timeless...
The cone
is prone
to make
mistakes.
Boss shares.
Max stares.
“Eh? What?”
“What? What?”
Chief groans.
Lifts cone.
Chaos -
cash loss.
Its cure -
murder.
Control -
its mole.
Oaf spy.
Boob tries.
His shoe
is glued.
Can’t call
in brawl.
His wife
saves life.
Nine-nine
is fine.
They win
Have twins.
Chaos
is boss.
5/7/2021
Andy always knew that Barney was no Gumshoe
Contest: One-Liner Entertainment
Sponsor: Silent One
Date:12-18-18
In my child’s mind a gumshoe sleuth detective
that would be me.
Nancy Drew or Ms. Marple, invented by Agatha Christie.
Trixie Belden and Honey too,
there were so many choices you see.
I spent many an hour reading these books,
training for the detective in me.
How many job choices along the way could there
possibly be?
Lots of common blue collar jobs before I finally
got a degree.
If I am honest, I might have to tell you a total
of around thirty-three.
There was no book-reading in those days,
except the boring texts assigned to me.
I am a Gemini oozing with flexible thinking, it is
my main and only true-blue decree.
In my thinking, a gum shoe sleuth detective
is what being a guidance counselor has
made of me.
Everybody deserves a day off,
even corporate pimps
Let somebody else watch the Madison Avenue whores
advertise their seductive cable street wares
Conscript the company pimp wannabe intern simps
Then issue frequent frequency warnings
to the parents,
telling them to shield the children's eyes ...
But do not attempt,
do not attempt to dilute or disguise
the visual sale messages with clumsy adult lies
Though B of D executives will foreswear otherwise
It's on me ... so take that day off, corporate pimps
Just remember to text the memo
to all the legal department gumshoe limps
Should any dark net pirate intercept
this encrypted communique,
of which their security breaching eyes are not
authorized to read
The strict protocol after being cyber hacked,
is to disavow any disseminated classified company
market philosophy
Nevertheless, let the corporate pimps
enjoy their easily earned day off
in a consumer paid luxury hotel
Surrounded by pretty women dressed very skimp
You hate your job,
but you're good at what you do
A paid shadow
who follows the trail of indiscretions
that other people lead you to
You're a gumshoe,
sticking to the assignment given you
Like a bloodhound on the scent,
another philanderer is going down
once you catch them in the act
Innuendo and suspicion becomes legal fact
And there's a bonus in it for you,
if you can get the aggrieved party the yacht too
Even still, you hate your job
It cost you a marriage,
and a normal family life
Walking the grimy streets,
back alleys and gutters
The underbelly of society is rife
with corruption and debauchery
This is what your private eyes see ...
so much dirt tracked back home to your family
It made your ex-wife not trust you
as much as she should
Made your children lives sad
from the taunts in the neighborhood
That's why you hate your job,
but you're so good at what you do
Everybody in high society wants to hire you,
opening up their blank checkbooks ...
with a couple more zeroes added too
You're a private eye,
living the Sam Spade life
Ain't nothing wrong with that,
being the good guy, wearing the black hat
I'd been living for years with dysfunctional peeps
It was when, and not if, I would murder the creeps
They completely deserved it, you'd better believe
And their deaths were not hardly an item to grieve.
I decided to kill them in different ways
And I proved to myself, see, that crime really pays
I was never found out, as the years rolled on by
It was luck, and rehearsing a heartbreaking cry.
I took special delight in the irony there
That so many were fooled by emotions laid bare
It became habit-forming, and made me so proud
Turning cretins to corpses, then mourning out loud.
The dumb cops were so clueless that I felt their shame
They admitted they hadn't a culprit to blame.
But this isn't a novel in which a gumshoe
Puts the pieces together in fingering you.
So I'll bid you Adieu, Adios, and all that
And return to my Soaps as I slowly grow fat
On the funds which I pilfered by changing their wills
(Yes, I sleep well at night, I just take a few pills.)
The client was desperate.
The coppers gave up on the chase.
They might have caught him, but,
The killer didn’t leave a trace.
Flipping coins in the shadows.
Slouch hat, overcoat and a gun.
Photographing through windows
Some clown’s extra-marital fun.
Who went bust playing horses?
Just who’s blackmailing who?
Questioning his sources,
The detective’s looking for clues.
Dusting for fingerprints,
Magnifying glass in hand.
Searching for evidence,
Like following tracks in the sand.
GUMSHOE!
In the merry fields we rove
our symbols splattered with guts
throughout the live long day trip
access keys posted with must
A nonchalant drifters tone arrives
encircled with categorical number chant
Dreary and droning the supplanted might
so geometrically bound, our flag of flight
But then to purchase
is to provide
like a lust ritual
with nothing to hide
Undenying i cannot hold tongue
for those who seek and torment
eclipsed in the mildew articial
like plastic patrons of disease
So twisted my gumshoe to pedal
unable to erase wallpaper medals
with all your pride catapults melting
what chatter past will seagull slide?
gumshoe robbing history of clues
looking for what could have been the perfect crime
among the runes and metaphorical muses
the knowledge i now have has lead me to no ultimate conclusions
Looking with hindsight to what the world has done right
finding the fingers of centuries pointing at the same flaws
consequently amazed
what could i say
you were the ones telling me
all along
Rain slapping me in the face as i contiued to cross the street...
Hardest the pain from slaps of rain, excruciating jolts thru down to my legs.
I pray to the almighty God-stop this pain, Relief cannot overcome
such suffering, no matter how much i ask or beg.My red Volvo seems as miles
as the rain is relentless and does not seem to want to give up or in.This skin
which is a whitened thin wrinkled of a prunish olden dog.
Wind is made up of icy daggers to skin originating from this one individual's
genetic of make-up, or cold icy personna.This ancient dinasaur'd body is filled up
with a hoarse raspy id.Of this to you i surely
do not kid.A gumshoe detective is bent by nature's affronts.Time well spent
wasted to years of hard booze-makes for a lost life of respect and loved by any to
lose.These doggs are overly heated and like a giant annaconda needs to be
released and free to shed it's old dilapidated old skin.Lest ye quits-No longer'd
may sin.I am not a detective who is not at all respected or very much thoughtful
reflective.
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