i
He wore a purple coat;
Gold chains and watches.
Came to the same casino every night
Same poker table
Same amount of time.
The manager called him a high roller
A loyal customer
And gave him free cocktails.
The young men wanted to be him.
ii
Opening the door to his apartment he sees
The mattress with poking springs
The cabinet with no door
The ashtray with three butts and a joint
Kicking beer cans out of the way he
Walks to his bathroom door and
Throws water on his face and looks
Deep into his reflection of
Broken glass.
iii
He pulls out his gold pocket
Watch and walks down to the strip;
He passes hookers on his
Way to the pawn shop where he sells
His watch and
Old wedding ring to
Afford another night as
A high roller and be
Envied.
Author notes
I think I might come up with a new title for this.
Thanks for reading. =]
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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Excellent poem
Great representation of what leads to where. Appearance, deception, the pretender. Fun poem. Oh what a tangled web we weave.....When you have addiction, you'll always have that, but nothing else. Destitute for the sake of appearance....hmmmm that could go many places.
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Thank you so much. I really love that phrase you have said in your comment, "Destitute for the sake of appearance." It seems that that is what gambling has com to be about.
Thank you for the comment. =]
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Wow, what an intriguing picture you have painted here-gambling is a terrible addiction, I have experience of it myself-it is always those that are perceived as the most generous, or flash, that tend to lose everything and people act surprised, but the signs are there if you look hard enough. I used to work in a casino, and its a whole other world, a windowless world where the next hand, next spin will be the one that saves you...Great write, although lonely, but gambling is a lonely secret affair at times.
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Yes, the desperation shows always in the eyes of the people I tried to describe here. Yet they will always wait one more hand, and one more spin.
Thanks for the comment. =]
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this sure is realistic
unfortunately that's the way it goes with gambling...
you showed the gambler being envied. you showed the gambler's reality and his desperation. the length is perfect.
my only suggestion on improvement would be to not capitalize the first letter of every sentence. It throws me off pace as I'm reading. I know many famous poets have written in that style and it throws me off when I read their work too
just a perfonal preference I guess
good write
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Yes, I've been thinking about playing around with the capitalization a lot since I first posted this. I turned it in for a creative writing class, and a friend of mine described it as, "Auto caps". I think I will change that, thanks for the second opinion!
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GREAT JOB!
I really loved this one! There are so many creative aspects in it that it's truly amazing! First of all, I like how you broke it up into parts and made some of the lines indented, it was really powerful for the poem and emphasis on certain lines, words, or parts. Second, I really love the imagery in this! Lines such as "Deep into his reflection of / Broken glass." come through really powerfully! Lastly, I love how you took the concept of "Envy" and made it into a person in a way, that was really powerful as well. Great job!
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