You feel like a voyeur, staring
as the red-shouldered hawks
mate in a tree mere yards
from where you are standing.
Still, you cannot take your eyes
away from them, your camera
tightly focussed, an avian
pornographer perhaps, or maybe
just a lucky soul given the chance
to witness a ritual denied to most,
and you know with luck their offspring
will repeat the show for you next year.
I’m not a gambler,
never have been, knowing
the house always had the odds
and every play was
a sucker’s bet for sure.
I might kill an hour
on a business trip
to Las Vegas going through
four dollars at the nickel slots,
one play for each
original nickel, winnings
set aside for rolling.
Twenty-one years ago
today I hit the grand jackpot
standing nervously on the steps
of an Indian restaurant,
and my good luck has
never changed so it’s fitting
that today I draw a perfect 21
even if there is no casino
to make a payoff on my winning.
You said it was a lucky charm,
but I know my cereals and it
clearly wasn’t that, nor was it
a faked foot of some leporidae
sylvilagus, even you would never
be that cruel, you are a vegan
after all, even your shoes are
some unholy man-made material.
And I don’t believe in luck,
I’ve never had it, good or bad
although I do admit I look forward
to Friday the Thirteenths for
things always seem to go well
when they occur for some reason.
Someone suggested that
it is certain if you fall
into a black hole you will be
crushed well beyond diamond.
Not exactly a fate I’d want,
but that person added
that time elongates as you
go through the event horizon.
If I understood him correctly,
death is instantaneous but
that instant will seem quite long
as you verge on your death.
I could live with that, I suppose
although with my luck I would
irritate my sciatica before entry
and suffer its pain with no Advil.
It would be an anathema to him
if he were a Pope or held deeply felt
opinions about anything, but he does not.
He denies being vacillating, rather, he says,
he is just open to a multitude of views,
never mind, she replies, that he
can never make any important decision
except by mere chance or luck.
He says he prefers life this way,
for he is disinclined to alienate anyone.
She says his unwillingness to take
and hold a position has alienated her,
and she points out that he has no friends
and few who would call him a true acquaintance.
He debates arguing with her, but he knows
she is possibly right and arguing
would do nothing, and so she walks away
and he can only imagine what might have been.
He was no longer sure
quite where he found it,
or whether it was talisman
or just an amulet, but
he didn’t believe the distinction
really mattered at all.
He carried it with him
everywhere he went,
was sure to put it
ins his pocket each day.
Many said it did nothing
for him, brought him
no better luck, no change
in his circumstances,
but he was quick
to point out how much
worse things might have been
had he never found it.
Each night I stare up at the sky, scanning
for the one star that is there solely
to answer whatever entreaties I choose to make.
It is said that we each have a lucky star,
but perhaps, given the ever-expanding population
of the world, mine is just too dim to see
from the city in which I live, or perhaps,
I simply haven’t found it, and addressing
someone else’s star brings you nothing,
not even thanks from the lucky soul
who won the big lottery last week
all at my urging, I mean how could I know
it was their star I addressed with my request,
it isn’t like they wear name tags after all.
Still, I don’t give up trying, though
I often swear that Orion and Cassiopeia
spend a portion of every evening together
just laughing their celestial asses off at me.
The space between
want and need
is at once a vast gulf
and the width of the hair,
much the same as that
separating luck and greed.
It is only in the eyes mind
that the gap is insurmountable
and we give up hope
that those who live
in the land of wants
will ever look across
the border of tears
and truly see those
who are doomed
to toil endlessly
in the land of need.
an old writer and his words 