Thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for publishing my poems in the April issue.

Defying The Odds

 

In One’s Favor:

 A winsome cardsharp,

 ready to ante up,

 feeling that tingle that precedes 

the accumulation of silver coins.

 

Out Of One’s Favor:

 The ministry of chance,

 making pithy observations,

 trying to manage the scandalous,

 eager to tighten the grip

 on a catalog of activated and far-flung probabilities.

 

In or out, 

both,

 such seemingly fathomless pipe dreams.

Learning Curve (Fibonacci)

I

once

believed

that to hear

one’s lament is the

most beautiful thing in the world,

but I am now aware that our most breathless moments

come from positive experiences that lend themselves to the best consequences.

No Critique Too Small

 

My spiteful, antagonistic co-worker,

mistress of the pipeline that scowls and gripes.

 

A savage bobcat with far-reaching mandibles,

a windstorm, a prickly cactus,

a winged basilisk that sees me as carrion,

a pitchforked wolf

digging into a deep canyon, 

shoveling up doggerel with glee.

 

I sit inside a mini hoop of self-protection.

I am penned in.

I handle my boo-boos

with the intent to not draw attention to myself.

 

Yep,

everyday,

there’s no critique too small.