A Nihilist Walks Into a Bar

I order a drink:
It's brown swill,
But the buzzing in the back of my throat, like a herd of bees,
Drowns the sound of my thoughts.
It’s nice to forget.

Rain and night remind me too much,
So I come here, to columns of filmy light,
Countertops covered in wet lymph,
And people who look like ashtrays
Poking their heads out of the mud
So they may make a wistful glance
At a world that has burnt them.

This is a far cry from wine in the north of Italy,
Petty mud-water that stares with its greasy eyes,
A little flatfish waiting to seize its prey.
My head nods on the counter,
The vile fish falls and lets out a hiss
As it heaves like a squashed cat,
Its life expunged.
There’s nothing I can do anyways.

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Lines 5 and 19 are the weakest in the poem. Should I get rid of them?