Zero Cards, All In

The casino aimed
For maimed heaven
And all the disciples
Clambered the atrium
Pawning breaths,
Capitulating the continents
Sealed in the impassable
Urns of these gamblers.

I took rancor slugs
As the jazz music
Wander to console
Or divert my perdition
Feigning a shattered wry
Of a harlequin smile
Girdling back the pearls
And the sharp crystals
As the daggers veer
Swiftly as the roulette
And the grinning grimace
Of the daunted heads.

My fingers stifled
And macadamized
Sternly cliff-hanging
Into an abject house
Of defeated cards,
And saliently deteriorating
With the buckling of cold
Streaming down rivulets
In my temples
And cradling a basin
In a more vulnerable place.

All in, my last card
And I trampled
Waging back,
Lightning-pace
Gone.

In the crunch
Of the rifted bones
Is a greater maelstrom
Of lambasted rapine
Yet I hold on to
These empty cards
And still risking the gamble

All in.
The heart.
The valiancy.
The dying days.
The prolonged torment.
The quintessence of gambling.

poem by Norman Santos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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