A thousand times too many, Advice to a gambler & L'art pour l'art
by Andrew Shields
[ poetry - april 11 ]
A thousand times too many
for Charles Fowler and Larry Hobbs
because we are too menny.
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
She lay down on the timothy
and tried to hold her breath
until she died. She tried,
because we are too many.
They held hands on the Charles Bridge,
leapt, and tried
to forget how to swim,
because we are too many.
He drank water from a spring
and later from a faucet.
Both tasted of death,
because we are too many.
You wake up to coffee brought from Sumatra,
oil and rain forests burning
across the Indian Ocean,
because we are too many.
We will sustain and grow despite
the laws of entropy.
Infinity won't save us,
because we are too many.
When its hosts have gone extinct,
what does a virus think?
"Soon we'll be no more,
because we are too many."
I hold my pen and write these lines
to change my life or nothing.
Why did the child hang himself?
Because we are too many.
Advice to a gambler
See every bet, but never raise unless
you're bluffing. Give away a card you need,
so other players have a chance. Be still
when your card's cut, but slowly raise your eyebrows
when something goes against you. Grapple not
with anyone who cheats, for they have knives,
but do not dull yourself with anyone
who never even dares to try. Beware
the Queen of Diamonds: when you need her most,
she'll lend her shine to other cards for spite.
Bear the loss of all your chips with grace,
and hand out IOUs when you have gone
too far. Then take your time to pay them back;
reserve your hidden stash for when they start
to threaten you or anyone you love.
Never be a user while the cards
are on the table; only drink when you
have cashed in all your chips, and only smoke
when you have left the hall, for if you get
ashes on the cards, they'll turn against you,
and if you do not order them a drink
for every one of yours, they will resent you.
L'art pour l'art
I cough, and think of Mallarmé,
whose doctor asked him to imitate
the cough that was keeping him from writing.
Sté'phane's demonstration was all too real -
the fit that followed slowly sealed
his windpipe. He died that night.
The Symbolist's doctor should have known:
mimesis isn't diagnosis.
