Show a little finesse, place a bet.
You’re just in time for the game, get some skin, the fix is in.

What’s more American than cashing in?
The real winners do, and now that could be you.

With suckers out there waiting, scamming is as easy as creating
an NFT, bitcoin, an online bet or a romance baiting.

You’ll be a witness, as the wise guys step in, for the NFL it’s a win-win
You get the excitement you need and the real playas get the proceeds.

Come on, Mr slick ricky, you know you’ve got to be bold to win gold
winners double-down, they never fold—the thrill never gets old.

The winners will add your measly bucks to their ***.
Let's admit, all you’ve got, isn’t a lot - it wouldn’t, say, fuel a yacht.

So, step up, place your bets, you’re in the digital front row all the time,
don’t be lame, be part of the game, it’s greasy, ******, organized crime.
.
.
A song for this:
Vicious Games by Yello
The Game of Love (feat. Michelle Branch) [Main/Radio Mix] by Santana

(A lone voice whispers)

Do you write
For freedom
From boredom

Or even sympathy

Simply to defeat
Apathy

People who experience traumatic events may sometimes develop apathy syndrome

(indifference and emotional detachment)

As a means to further protect themselves mentally and prevent further distress

This is normally present in survivors of tragedies

And it can be part of post-traumatic stress disorder

Caused by emotions hard press

So are you ready to lay on my couch
And begin to confess

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

LA burns, smoke blackens sky,
people flee and abandon cars,
90 and 100 mile an hour winds
feed and fan the flames, people
losing everything, even being
rich, or famous cannot save their
big homes and life's possessions.
Someplace in that expanding,
raging inferno my son, an Oregon
Fire Chief leads 300 Firefighters
and their 75 engines and water tenders
over 900 miles south into the fire storm.
Along with firefighters from other
states. Mutual support needed & rendered.

One of my son's firemen is his own son,
and my 21year old rookie grandson
with a little over one year on the job.
His seasoned father has fought many
battles with all kinds of fires, he set to
retire in May after 30 years on the job.
He has seen it all, with never a scratch
or a "singe", but my grandson has never
experienced anything of this magnitude,
being one of a 4-man truck crew battling
side by side in the belly of a raging beast.

All these 30 years I've worried for my son's
safety, now it starts anew, for our boy barely
a man that now walks in his father's shoes.

I will not sleep well until they are all
home safely. I grieve for the victims
of this awful tragedy.

I climbed this mountain to once again
look upon your face.

You always loved sunsets, called them
mystical, said that if we looked deeply
with purposeful conviction that we
could see the face of those that we had
loved and lost.

As with most things, in this also you
were right. I climbed this mountain to
once again see your face, and I see you
in its warm sunset glow and deepening
bright star light mother dear.

She was an old barn cat, around the place for
a dozen years or more. Superb mouser and
yard hunter. Came from feral parents, aloof
by nature, and breeding, a little wild at heart
I suppose.  In time she developed some slight
affection for some of my family, me included,
eventually a regular welcomed visitor to my
porch, even crawling upon my lap for pat and
scratch under her chin but always declining to
be held by any human being.

She would come when I called her, running
full tilt and jumping fences, ignoring the food
just wanting attention and companionship.
Over the years she and I became good friends.
She came every day, morning and evening to say
hello and oh yes, get an offered meal. Rubbing
her sleek cat body on my feet and legs, offering
up her affection with an audible purring for
everyone to hear even from some distance.

Her age was starting to show, thinner, slower, she
was getting on just as I am, perhaps we both knew
it. Last night she came to the glass door and looked
so forlorn. Though cold outside I put on a coat and
brought her out some food, and I sat in my chair.

She sniffed the food with disinterest then came
over to lay upon my feet softly meowing, I could
feel her little purr motor vibrating on my shoes.
I reached down and gave her a tummy scratch,
she always loved that.

We resided like that for a while, her upon my feet,
me in my chair. Becoming too cold I started to rise
to go back inside, but Daisy did not move, I reached
down and felt no purr vibration, she was unmoving
and silent. In that moment I knew that she had passed
from this earth. I picked up her now limp body and
placed her on my lap, my eyes teared up knowing
that she was gone.

So sudden, one minute there and then just gone.
Not a bad way to go, rather than some long-drawn
-out affair, with doctors, useless operations, hospice
and lingering formidable pain. Just lay down and
go to sleep.

We should all be that lucky when our time comes.

~
Salvation comes with a price--

Pried open doors,
choir songs of fingerdust
resurrecting goldrush,
and a pretty little
cromulent called whitewash.

New century martyrs
have risen up to burn books,
and quotes,
and tongues,
and every contrariwise thought,
--is this intuition or inquisition?

What ascends is trapped within
tenebrific clouds,
returning to barren ground
when it rains unholy prayers.

They don't crusade for you or me.
They contest for dominion and mastery.
Those who believe are mooncalf.

This torchlight of intolerance
sends out skyrockets,
and away it goes!
trending on your homepage:

Past generations
burning at the stake,
at the hands of sinners clothed as saints,
in cathedral oblivion,
dismembering their future
in the blood of their own children.

Amen?
~

I have my
half written poems
I have this blue window
to look through
when I’m lonely
I ignore its
invitation
I sit on this bed
like it’s the edge
of the world
the white sheets
sleep behind me
like restless angels
I scribble words
I call it poetry
I write the word
love in black ink
and the walls
become irritable
deep blue shadows
swallow my room
of souvenirs
I want to hear the
sound of violins
I want to hear the
sadness in your voice
become clear
I need a pleasant dream
I need something solid
to lean upon
I need something to
sooth these
shaking hands …
Clay.M

Let us remember Aristillus & Timocharis,
Like Halley & Galileo.
Of Zhang Heng & Dao Lee,
Like Newton & Max Born.
Of Werner & Yermolyeva,
Like Curie & Oppenheimer.
Of Paracelus & Fredrick Banting,
Like Tesla & Pythagoras.
Of Richard Feynman & André Ampère,
Like Michael Faraday & Benjamin Franklin.
Of Payne-Gaposchkin & Joseph Swan,
Like Ignacy Łukasiewicz & Kikunae Ikeda.
Of Takamine Jōkichi & Berners-Lee,
Like Robert Hooke & Gutenberg.
Of Talos Attalus & Perrilus,
Like William Bullock & Franz Reichelt.
Of Abū Bakr al-Rāzī & Ibn al-Haytham,
Like Archimedes & Johannes Kepler.
Of Aldini & Henry Russell,
Like Edison & Graham Bell.
Of Carl Bosch & Richard Fiedler,
Like Mr. Hyde & Dr. Jekyll.
Of Brokkr & Sindri,
Like Gullinbursti & Hephaestus.