The Ballad Of Shylock (Part Two) Poem by Dave SmithWhite

Beware of fakes or clones, for my name is Shylock Jones.
The best detective England can produce.
My name is Shylock Jones, who'd see evil overthrown;
It's collective head suspended by a noose!

My name is Shylock Jones. I smoke cigars and cones.
The seven per-cent solutions come to mind.
And in this latter matter, it turns from idle chatter,
To the raw and rotten data of mankind.

Though he gave a lavish dinner,
For the gathered saint and sinner,
This boasting host was the most
Malevolent of men.
And Papworth's rude ambition,
And his ruthless disposition,
Caused all of you to know this, at the end.

An exalted position of wealth and power,
Can quash all rivals or make them cower.
He derived that special, illicit joy,
From lives he crushed with hopes destroyed.
The unsavory methods his agents employed,
Gave vital intelligence, near truth unalloyed.
And with that cold, manic, yet retentive brain,
He compiled an archive of hidden pain.
He used the fear that haunts the rich;
Disgrace and scandal, to queer the pitch,
Threatening ruin to those he'd shame,
With his mock piety and moral blame.

My name is Shylock Jones. Like Papworth, turning stones,
As the lowest life scurries from the light.
My name is Shylock Jones. I detect the pheromones,
The lurking scent of murder in the night.

I sing in dulcet tones that my name is Shylock Jones.
I enlist the somber logic of the mind.
The task can't be postponed lest evil be enthroned,
Like one-eyed kings in countries of the blind.

Will it knock you all a loop, if I tell the gathered group,
That jolly Mr. Croupe is our man?
Let genius wilt and droop for to conquer will I stoop,
I must recoup his foul and futile plan.

An ace reporter for the Sydney Argus,
Points the arrow and impales his targets;
Pushing secret political leverage,
To effect a shift in commodity markets,
And profit the publisher in the competitive advantage
That defines this burgeoning age.
Every master needs a minion,
And you were Papworth's. In his dominion.
He was the shining knight, and you, his page.
You, his fawning creature, and he, your cage!
I'll not pretend to understand,
How fear and rage is mixed in man;
What mortar pounds out plots and plan,
For I lay this deed to your lethal hand.

You injected your noxious employer,
Via needle and thread out in the foyer.
That pantomime with his hat and coat
That undermines our focus and promotes
Your odious purpose is clear to me:
Your genius tilts at lunacy.

My name is Shylock Jones. I suffer fools and drones.
The world is full of toadies and their ilk.
And like the critics in their tomes,
Or that impostor Sherlock Holmes,
They weave their specious tongues of silk.

Where now your vaunted glee and mock,
At my want of key and lack of lock?
No guilty plea will haunt the dock,
For once exposed they die with shock.
Their unmasking will unman them,
Their conscious thoughts will damn them,
Their heads will shake and tremble on the block.

My name is Shylock Jones. Caught out the fool atones.
His suicide his admission of his guilt.
But that's perhaps too simple, for I detect a further pimple,
To the buttocks of this mystery on stilts.

For my name is Shylock Jones and I smell the sweet cologne;
A potpourri of poison in the room.
For I am Shylock Jones. And when roused I spit hormones.
My lightning brain, a beacon in the gloom.

Despite your sniff and groans, my name's still Shylock Jones.
My mind still quick and facile as soap.
And now it comes so lathered before this party gathered
To attend to the real culprit. Miss Thrope!

Miss Anne Thrope, the respectable spinster.
How did she cope with a purpose so sinister?
With a kiss? Was it Anne? Or a stroke of the hand?
Your victim unmanned to administer,
That lethal toxin from yeast, you acquired in the East:
The paste of the Black Widow's tincture.

Now Papworth gave you rope
Though not enough, for 'Adam' Thrope?
He knew unseemly secrets and your shame.
With girls so meek on laudanum,
Men pay you to disport with 'em;
The eponymous madam on the game.

You can tear at your gape in a vain bid to escape,
Roll your eyes and convulse on the floor.
Your screech and your bile are just feminine wiles
To which I am immune, evermore.

For I am Shylock Jones, and I vanquish vicious crones,
The wantons and the witches of the Age.
Yes I am Shylock Jones who despite your cries and moans,
Submits to neither blandishments or rage.

My name is Shylock Jones. Of voice, rich baritones.
The music of my senses is my proof,
That evil is dethroned when met by Shylock Jones,
Who never lets mere facts obscure the truth!