Jokers and knaves are wild cards As ever they were What fateful houses these make Breath-held balancing Precarious shelters Gamblers and wanderers With tumbleweed roots Clinging air instead of earth The stuff of fools and stars And someone's days and years Are made only of this This thrilling despair
Jokers and knaves and kings and queens And some of subtler meaning Mean nothing but paper Numbers and trembles Dry-mouthed mumbles Prayers to a ruthless god With no reason to pity fools And a dark love of sacrifice Yet still desperate belief Huddled behind swollen eyes Contradicts every probable outcome And falls and spins