Bet and Lose

I. Golden Cup
King, Queen or Joker.
So few options for how entwined are the dances.
So few for how much broken are your chances.
So few for the fortuity of the poker.
 
Your deck is growing short.
In this crumbling game, do you dare choose a consort?
 
Bet it all,
Lose it all,
Try tomorrow,
Go through the threshold between
The sun
and the human mind,
Dare to compress stars
Until you made them dwarves.
 
Time leaves no stone unturned.
Cards are burning in this supreme fire.
Who of all shall burn?
Watch as the elm, in anger,
Defoliates relentlessly
Love, loyalty, felony,
Your dawning devilries,
crystallized memories in amber.
 
Everyone took turns, in jostles mild,
To make you swallow the bitter substance.
Tell me, how did that golden cup tasted?
Desire? Despair? Judgment? Absence?
 
“No”, you say.
“It tasted to the last love of a child,
Perishing to the sound of motors that roar,
Tasted to pearls embed in my throat.
To curses in my chest becoming inborn…”
 
Lose it all,
Bet it all,
Try tomorrow,
Go through the threshold between
The sun
and the human mind,
Dare to compress stars
Until you made them dwarves.
 
II. Insomniac Night

Twist and twist the handle
Of that old music box.
It seems to breathe alone.
The walls of the bookcase
shiver and die, fully sated.
Night moves forward as if it waited.
 
Chips melt away without a sound.
Without perfidious whine.
They even seem to pave a path.
 
Twist and twist the needle
Of that old varnished clock.
It seems to breathe alone.
The walls of the mirror
Shiver and die, fully sated.
Night moves forward as if it waited.
 
“It seems as if a piano plays in the distance, Vivian.”
Piano keys know how to play alongside oblivion.
There’s an ocean between you and fear,
A second between you and the stratosphere.
 
But you’re not alone.
Silence and throbbing,
Insomnia by sobbing.
Most of all, a woman’s fury.
 
Joker, Joker, Joker.
That notion is a choker.
You’ve lost but you never had.
It was a lament that still gads.
 
Things forbidden are delicious, wet and scarred.
Things forgotten are delicious, dry and marred.
Things forgiven are delicious, sweet and sacred.
Things forsaken are delicious, far and wakened.

 III. Of Monsters and Queens

You bet it all and you lost it all.
Maybe after thunder
you’ll recover from the shock.
You were a mere strange shadow
In the threshold between
Innocence and black wings.
Compress serenades,
Transform music into ammo.
You’ll see that shame sways.
You’ll see that love weighs.
 
Why that craving to run to high lands?
If only you could wreck the lone sands.
Who do you expect to be your reaver?
Waiting for kisses was a mortal fever.
You’re no princess, sweetie, he’s gone.
Do you long for freedom, prison, or both?
 
Pride is a mortal sin.
Sweetie, what a chagrin,
To have no predator.
 
Your believes- were they always that dull?
With a foot inside the pitch,
You finally understand there’s no prince.
No one will come to the rescue, doll.
 
The storm is still vociferating.
But rage and pride can create monsters and queens.
Jokers in wrath can become monsters and queens.
 
Dark sorcerer, dark wine,
Merciless man,
Stay in Never-Never land.
 
Hopes melt away without a sound.
Without perfidious whine.
They even seem to pave a path.
 
Late in the last autumn
My vestiges of ingenuity fluttered away.
Motors roared in awe
and kept darkened sighs at bay.
Everything sank to the bottom.
 
Comfy, my dear, are the lone sands.
Although queens can banish everything.
Everything,
but the chants of Never-Never land.