{"id":1423,"date":"2017-06-04T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2017-05-29T16:51:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T23:51:40","slug":"last-chance-saloon-gliese-iii-by-david-c-kopaska-merkel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1423","title":{"rendered":"Last Chance Saloon, Gliese III by David C. Kopaska-Merkel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nOn a world where alcohol
\nkills the natives with the inevitability
\nof a bullet through the head,
\nit takes a special sort of bartender
\nto pay the rent each month.<\/p>\n

Finding thrill-seekers,
\nthe young and the foolish,
\nwho don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the sense
\nevolution gave a gibber bug,
\nfinding them night after night
\nafter night after night,
\nwears a body down,
\ndulls an agile tongue.<\/p>\n

Finding the depressed,
\nthe suicidal and near-,
\nthose tired of life, ready
\nfor one last experience
\nthat can rouse a flicker of interest
\nin a jaded cephalothorax.<\/p>\n

Too, the impulse buyers, the
\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m-tough-enough crowd
\n(they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not),
\nand if you get enough trade
\nto keep the doors open\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<\/p>\n

So many bodies!
\nTakes a strong back
\n(even with power tools,
\nback hoes, et cetera)
\na young back, too,
\nworking long hours,
\nor the dead stack up.<\/p>\n

Lax laws on this planet,
\nbut do-gooders from off-world
\n(humans, the Sirius, the Thalxa, many more),
\nthey keep getting in your face
\nlike you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing something wrong.
\nBut, you have a solution.
\nQuick or dead, know what I mean?
\nAnd you have helpers, young and strong,
\na backhoe, power tools.<\/p>\n

Still there are times it gets you down:
\ndawn after a slow night, the rent overdue,
\nmidday in the pouring rain,
\nyour birthday spent alone,
\nand you think,
\nI coulda picked something easy,
\nplenty of jobs with less stress,
\nbetter hours and better benefits,
\nand no one trying to lynch you,
\nbut hell, you fill a void,
\nyou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have no custom
\nif you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t needed,
\nright? And so you live,
\nto kill another day,
\nin humble service.<\/p>\n

image:\u00c2\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0,\u00c2\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=2969474<\/h6>\n
Absinthe Paul Beucler<\/i> \u00c3\u00a0 Bart (25 France) par M. Ringel<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a world where alcohol kills the natives with the inevitability of a bullet through the head, it takes a special sort of bartender to pay the rent each month. Finding thrill-seekers, the young and the foolish, who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the sense evolution gave a gibber bug, finding them night after night after night after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1426,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}