{"id":71078,"date":"2020-06-27T20:31:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T00:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=71078"},"modified":"2020-06-27T22:33:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T02:33:30","slug":"the-lonely-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/the-lonely-street\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lonely Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

“I see him always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated.”<\/p>\n

Marlowe waited but his quarry never left the bookstore.
\nThe dank night felt lonely and longer than ever before.
\nTwo nickels rubbing together wouldn’t buy him lunch.
\nThis crazy case was all based on a jealous wife’s hunch.
\nIt was 2 a.m. on a quiet downtown Santa Monica street.
\nThe time and place you’d only see seedy strangers meet.
\nThe shamus walked around back. For once, he was puzzled.
\nNo exit. Where did the man go? He was truly befuddled.
\nDirect was always best. He knocked on the front door.
\nA voice rang out, a deep male voice with a throaty roar.
\n“Get lost! Scam I tell you! Don’t want any. Damn it, It’s late.”
\n“Tell John I have a message from his wife, I’m willing to wait.”
\nA pause and then a click as the door swung to let me in.
\nMarlowe spied a long hallway leading to rooms with a quite noisy din.
\nA shadow stepped out with a gun pointed at his chest.
\n“What do you know about my wife? You’re an unwanted guest.”
\nHe smiled. Gun or not he was never defeated.
\n“She’s worried, she thinks you’ve cheated.”
\nA laugh from the big goon. “Nuts, I’ve done no such thing.”
\n“Get out of here before I put your arm in a sling.”
\nI nodded at the noise behind him, down the mysterious hall
\nHe smiled. “Got to pay off some gambling debt’s, that’s all.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I see him always in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never quite defeated.” Marlowe waited but his quarry never left the bookstore. The dank night felt lonely and longer than ever before. Two nickels rubbing together wouldn’t buy him lunch. This crazy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1065,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1065"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71109,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71078\/revisions\/71109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}