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Thank Orson..hmm, must be looking at the wrong poem. There is an 'ever'in the one I'm looking at, not 'every' ?

Sorry, I meant "every" in the decoded instruction, not the poem. You have to do what it says to every letter that is in the grid and which is also in the relevant lines of the said poem. You won't be left with much but it will mean something.

muraria,

The word every appears in the decoded message.

17 letters in the grid guide you to the verse.
Then you switch to decoded message and find out what you have to do.

I did that and was left with an abbreviation.

For some people, it could be interpreted as Best Friend. But I am not confident in what I have done.

I'm sure we've done the same, Sunray. According to another song, it stands for what are a best friend for certain people.

Many thanks Orson and Sunray, I can certainly say this is one of the more (overly) convoluted, least coherent puzzles I've done.

I agree with you.
Too many steps to go in search of a best friend.

Alternatively,
Here is the winner of the World's Ugliest Dog Contest.
I am sure she (125 lb. Mastiff called Martha) is a best friend to someone.

https://twitter.com/i/moments/878663642647887872

Hi, very belatedly, all contributors this week. I am way late and behind but want to play catch up.
I need help please with 9a and 39a:
Fiery Colleen by end of melee hit wretched fellows back. (I have E?T?N?)
Old courts says Edmund regularly cleared stolenwise
(And ?E?S)

Me again. I think 9a is Eithne. (A friend's name. Shame on me) but I can't see 39.

Jogamel, try removing letters regularly from "stolenwise". Everything else you have written is correct.

I also agree with you, muraria.
This is the first Inquisitor I have tackled in ages, and I decided to give it a go because the setter is one I admire greatly, but this is not one of his finest. All I'm left with is a feeling of disappointment.

There seems to be a tendency to cram more and more thematic material and endgame tasks into tough cryptics these days. In many cases the final result is over-contrived, thematically incoherent and inelegant.