Wednesday, April 30, 2025

'Casino Rat'

As National Poetry Month concludes ...from the Poetry Window at East Village Books (99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue) ... featuring the work of Johnny H., an East Village poet...
"Casino Rat"
If I could use my comb
On your blood-matted hair I would
If I had been there to say the Words
Before you managed to limbo
Into the non-humane trap
Being defenseless and without sin
Why, I would have done everything
Even opened my jar of luck
And rubbed some on you
However
I have already spent my excess capital
Playing blackjack through the night
Running probabilities to the very end
Have thus concluded that all of us
Are either coming or going
Yet
Despite such knowledge of the flesh
I still bet even money on your dreams
Of slithering out from under your stars
Finding way home to your children
at

2 comments:

  1. Kelleyann 2April 30, 2025 at 7:18 PM

    Another fine poem by one of my favorite contemporary poets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brad TorumApril 30, 2025 at 7:35 PM

    With “a jar of luck”, “all of us either coming or going”, and the plight of a dead rodent the poem turns the mundane into the existential. Good work.

    ReplyDelete

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