Title lost in one fell swoop
The left hand held the ace,
Portraiture of destitution’s
Fools chanced quick about-face.
Should have shown the King of Hearts
Rightly kept the Queen
Played instead an interception
Game of in between…..
Been this ****** way all my life
Folly chasing foil,
Dreams of cleaning up a pile
In plunging deep for oil,
Cursed, I seldom  got there,
Chasing failure’s ghost.
Instead I played my ******* ace
Then watched his straight flush coast.

M.
Smoked in a dim, dark place.
26 January 1967

in a pool of water
as the camera rolled
his wayward daughter
wet and cold
but he couldn’t spot her

Loneliness sits
in a ***** martini
salty and cloudy
in her stuffed bikini
she’s a bit rowdy
for a teeny ******

Loneliness sits
in a paperback
pages yellow
lines are hacked
in type, she bellows
they say she’s whacked

Loneliness sits
in a gilded cage
a broken mirror
it’ll age
only queerer
but never sage

Having finally climbed the ziggurat
Known as Bank of America
Customer’s-Non-Service
I was able to order checks.

Not the ones I wanted - oh no -
Somehow ‘they’ wouldn’t let me.
‘They’ being a recorded voice
That said I’m allowed four digits.

But my checks always need five
You cannot order those online -
You somehow have to phone it in.
So, resigned to this, I called.

After clicking one through five
Another robot lady’s voice
Then told me I can order those
By only going back on line.

I tried this several different ways.
It always ended up the same.
No matter which I tried they told me
I had to use the other way.

At painful length I gave it up
And ordered checks with just four numbers,
Starting at quadruple seven
So I can tell them from the rest.

Yesterday my order came
I opened it and felt despair
The checks were not the size I’m used to
And useless to me in my work.

2
Back to the phone’s robotic voice
To stumble on a lucky click
And get Patricia on the line -
A person who could help me out.

Telling her my tale of sorrow,
She promised to replace the checks
With ones in the requested size.
Then as a bonus offered me

Checks that count up in five digits,
Starting where my last ones stopped.
Oh Hosannah in the Highest -
Patricia’s now my Patron Saint.

Banking is a trial by fire
Though they shout convenient
All they’ve done is make it harder
With the loss of human contact.
ljm