The World's Last Barman Poet

I am The World’s Last Barman Poet,

apprenticed to Jean-Thomas Cruz,

half-French, half-Spanish wizard

with vodka, lime juice and thesaurus

via a backpacking trip that didn’t

work out, small misunderstanding –

Not drugs, talcum powder, see?

The times I hated Jean-Thomas,

all his prattle about the holy spirit

of cocktails, the preparation

a kind of sacrament, and of course

the importance of abstinence,

when he was tapping my girl

in his hotel suite every chance

he got. I lay in the room below,

ceiling fan beating its sultry drum,

schooled by the bedsprings' trochees,

him, between thrusts, shouting: Twist

of dark rum! Whisky! Orange juice!

Until one night I added a good slug

of hydrocyanic acid, thus became

The World’s Last ... you get the idea.