A Pack of Cards 219

The golden rule never gives change.

And gamblers only drink champagne

Losers can’t afford it

Don’t play poker with medicine men

Doc Holliday's a sore loser

It goes with his obsession

He's a dentist by learning

A gambler by profession

An' a renaissance assassin

A Medici Faustian bargain

Playing the green baize table

Where ten’s the changing sign

The alchemist’s calling card

The card of transformation

A card of changing of beds

And a change of friends

They could even be enemies

Fortune changes for the worse

An’ losing is a winning gamble

When hands like feet change direction

Losing yourself is the smart play

Sooner’s so much better than later

In time the world loves a loser

But gamblers hate a debtor

I.O U’s don’t spell for less than A an’ E

They’re just vowels without provenance

Gambling cashes in on culture

Money is the 'lingua franca'

Of a very deadly silent economy

No really one talks about it

An’ you can’t keep your eyes off it

But sure as hell everyone

Listens to the silence

Ten’s the calling card of consequence

A very suitable number

In Fire Earth Air and Water

They can be quite soulfully pedestrian

You never know what’s in the elements

A good card to keep up your sleeve

But lose your shirt you lose everything

An’ it goes without saying a lot

Not a good card to be found naked with

Be careful with a nine in any colour

It’s the most deserving in the highest

Nines, sleeves and gambling

Are a triple tray of troubles

Heads have been known to be served

On a tray of trays

Nines can be very Trinitarian

And quite John the Baptist

A good card to lose in haste

But eternal if a friend,

There’s none better

Eights go on forever

The Via Dolorosa of numbers

They are a sacred journey

Only the compassionately beautiful

Gamble with an eight in their hands

Eight is a sacred mystery

In any suit it is never cut

And always woven

From a seamless gambled-for cloth

Eight never gambles in suits

Only in garments

Never gamble with an eight

Unless you’re gambling with redemption

Hand life and soul have been

Eternally lost or found on an eight

Truly a gamblers card

And sometimes a calling card

As every gambler knows

A card of consequence and karma

When it calls keep your eyes on the dealer

Sure as hell a deal's been done

An’ all the blue eyes are on you

Sevens like fives are a journey

Good cards for travellers

Wanderers and shape shifters

Seven seas and five continents

Suits those wandering souls among us

Two solitary prime numbers

Indivisible onto themselves

They can be quite pedestrian

Fives can be over confident over land

But they shouldn't try to be seven

Walking on water's a mistake

Unless you’re an avatar

Treading wine is better and safer

Fives and sevens are a journey

Good cards to keep in your shoes

Sixes are sixes by themselves

An’ they don’t go with sevens

They're the card of reflection

A scriptural card if ever there was one

A card dressed in a triple mirror

Vanity and vexation in the curves

A card to turn and turn

And turn your eyes again

The number of this card

Another Trinitarian consequence

Is reflected in the mirror

An image of ourselves

The card has an identity problem

Don’t knock it, you might need it

It’s your friend in need of friend

An’ with friends like that

It's just as well that any three

From any four sixes

Is the sign of a winning hand

In a loser’s smile

And the best part of a full house

A card of Jezebels, angels

And mirrors, on reflection

Don’t you just love sixes

Five is five and let’s not talk about it

It’s an assassins calling card

It goes with its own territory

A card that doesn’t take prisoners

Fours are strangers at the door

Every one with a Matthew birth mark

In the image of John

Like four seasons they arrive

Like pilgrims then are gone

To change themselves to be

The same again, another season

Another fall of leaving calls

A card for all weathers

And shelter in a storm

You are kind of pleased to see it

But you don’t know why

Also cards of mystery and obviousness

And only fools an’ fours

Can tell the difference

It’s the ‘maybe’ card

You never really know with fours

The proverbial knocking at your doors

But sure as hell

They’ll never ring a bell

A tidy card to send to acrobats

And other kinds of well-balanced people

That’s what fours are for

Commitments tailored to your needs

And the occasional highly wired friend

Don’t go out without them

You never know if you might need them

Threes are trinities and divinities

Fathers Sons an’ Holy Ghosts

And more usually the cause

Of a quick divorce

The world moves in threes

Sattwas Rajas and Tamas

The triune dance of the universe

Light, Action and Inertia

It even grows on trees

Every one’s a traveller

Some are even gypsies

A good card to keep in your shoes

They can be an invitation

Or a visitor from a distant place

They're the taxi cards of the pack

Call them when you wanna go

Somewhere, they'll arrive

They're the calling cards of falling friends

You'll never be lonely on journey

Of five and sevens with a three

They’re the crucifixion card

Unless it suits you otherwise

To be so amused

Deuces are twos, the mirror card

Duality’s their basic business

They really are a wolf card

Always travelling in packs

Not sufficient to be dangerous

An’ just enough to not be lonely

They really appreciate your company

It suits their reflective existence

To travel in togetherness

The faces are places searching for aces

Jacks in a pack never look back

If they can possibly look sideways

Concealing their knavish tendencies

They’re quite the well-tailored card

Fine raiment maketh a fool attractive

In very unfashionable circumstances

Treachery an’ deceit on each turning face

Sure as Clementine’s your long lost darling

An Ophelia never got her hand in time

A gambling Hamlet is a sight to see

Jealousy rage and a ferocious anger

Writ upon a countenance looking back

Beyond the cardboard eyes of the beholder

Dumb broads are never dumb

And seldom abroad

Sometimes they can be

A very home loving card

Two jokers live in every pack

One out front the other looks back

They’re the magpies in the deck

Less in sorrow than in joy

They cover every missing face

The hooded birds deserve their place.

Their reputation precedes them

In black and white they are the night

In colours they’re magnificent sevens

And they’ve really got your number

In spades it suits their harlequin fashion

To be a veritable grave digging charmer

In jewels they w***e the precious deck

Two diamonds and they’re everybody’s

The vagrant royalty rules the roaming pack

Their world is another creature’s finery

Gamblers are such snazzy jazzy dressers

If you have to lose a shirt do it in style

Second hand clothes and second hand hands

Aren’t so much a misfortune more an affliction

Desperately seeking a lost occasion

Well-heeled fools engrave it on their heart

Better be dead in your gracious threads

Than kicking in rags of common comfort 

They’re the card that always looks back

The face in every hand smiling at you

Looking at them with cardboard eyes

Then there’s the precisely tailored box

The transient funeral parlour

In a good looking box like that

You can die an’ dine anywhere

In reasonable style

If you’re tailed a toss head first

Into a losing situation

Cards never call they beckon

And if they speak it’s a good idea to listen.