I.
I bet twelve chips on the bubble getting bigger
three on the dog running into the road
and fourteen on never meeting you, face to face.
We are as strangers at a table, staring down
at twisting black and white, watching colorful trinkets
toss, and pull, stack and fall, but never looking up.
I don't meet your eyes in the parking lot,
I gambled that you weren't a threat, that tonight
is not the night in which I bet it all and lose.
Wager, wager, always your wager sir,
twelve pence, a pint of ale, just three minutes
behind the wheel, or on a bike, or in a road.
As I lay my head in bed, inside my cozy house
behind my security system blessing me with sleep
and my dog staring out the window, I gamble.
Will my nightmares kill me? Every minute
another chip down on the table, even as I wash my hair
and launder my clothes. They tumble dry with heat
and I lay my chips they won't explode.
II.
They say it's not gambling if it's a skills game
a game of statistics, and analysis, and odds
a way to win for sure, and a way to lose for sure
but even the safest players of us, can die
like a fly on the tongue of a dog, buzzing
and flapping, and crying to get away, but- lick; gone.
Charlie bet his life that living inside
eating omnivorously, keeping up his health, he would live
until he was 103. That was his goal.
"The big one-oh-three for me!" He would say as he bet out his friends
"No no, I don't want to go drinking. I don't drink! Bad for the liver."
"No no, I don't want to go clubbing, it's late." He would complain. "I need sleep."
Charlie bet his house wouldn't catch fire and he slept,
just one coin on the bet, his fire detectors roared
and he did not wake. His dog barked, and he did not wake.
He died of smoke inhalation in the hospital
having been pulled from the house,
when they threw all his chips in someone else's hands,
They bet on the only spot available, the only one they had
and the wheel spun with those horrid odds
the smoke cleared, and he lost.
Alice made it to 103, boozing, drinking, smoking,
walking along Detroit streets at night, living in squalor
and living in riches. She bet all she had on everything,
that she wouldn't hit anyone driving home drunk
that she could text and avoid the deer,
that she had the right answers to the right questions,
"Live life to it's fullest!" she would shout.
But it's just chips. She gambled, and won,
until her odds were horrid, and the house reminded us
it's gambling.
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127,991 Literary Works • 671,488 Reviews
Hey Aley! I'm here to review your work even though I doubt I'll be helpful xD Anyway I'll just say what I think of the work and try my hardest to be helpful.
I find all your poetry extremely pretty and nice when read out loud. Your poetry just always seems so good like reading a famous poet's work, so I definitely want to praise you for that. I'm trying to understand what this poem is about. I like poems that make me think so that isn't a bad thing. I'm figuring it's about a narrator with a little bitter look on life as she gambles everything. "Never seeing you, face to face" the poem is written at someone who I'm assuming is like a long-distance friendship or relationship. The first stanza was really good and just overall an amazing start to a really good poem. The second stanza had really good imagery building on the poem's introduction. In the third stanza I'm guessing the narrator was supposed to met that person but they didn't show up and it's another thing she is gambling or betting on rather bitterly.
The first stanza was interesting and added more depth to the poem. Explaining the narrator's views on gambling a bit. "But even the safest players of us, can die" I really liked that line and it just adds to the narrator's bitterness, which by the way isn't a bad things, I really like it. The part about Charlie was really cool and made me think about life. About the people who are relying on something. I was really interesting. I wish you would add more to the narrator's story and that person who they won't see. "when they threw all his chips in someone else's hands," really adds to the whole life is just gambling and I seriously love it! I feel like the poem was long and bounces around a bit and wasn't as clear as I could be. The part about Alice was interesting as well adding to the part of gambling. She did everything Charlie wouldn't and survived. I really liked this poem and even though I wish you explain more about the narrator, I still gave this a like because it deserves it. You're so gifted Aley xD
marmalade
This is Kaos here for a review.
The first line was a little unclear to me what you were trying to get across, the first thing that came to mind was "bursting someones' bubble" but I don't really know what you were trying to do with it. I felt as if there was a pattern here with the numbers but the place where if it was a pattern it's three instead of thirteen, and I sort of want to know more about this first part of the poem and what you originally intended it to be rather than what I thought it meant, which was sort of gambling on different things and all.
I felt as if you needed commas after the first and second lines as it helps the poem flow better. Along with this the "face to face" didn't really need a comma in my opinion, or could be taken out of the poem so the first stanza ends with "you".
The first line felt a little awkward with the "we are as strangers at a table" and if you took out the "as" it would work better. I liked the imagery made in this stanza but I also felt you could have gone a little further or more to describe the chips here. I also thought the "but" in the third line could be taken out, and this is one of the main things in the poem is that if you take out some of the filler words it tends to flow and sound better.
This stanza felt weaker than the last two as it kind of does a little bit of repeating here of what's already been said. The last line is kind of what threw me off for this, because I liked the other two, but I felt as if it was a bit general of the topic.
I didn't really see a reason for this stanza to be here, or it doesn't need to be here in this form. The "or on a bike" and "or in a road" are what caught me off about it, and the rest of the stanza was generally fine other than that I didn't really prefer the wording, but if this stanza has some more polish it would work. I think my problem with this is that there were so many different routes you could have taken with gambling and the tone or feeling of the poem overall felt a little monotone to me. It didn't have a distinct emotion that it was really trying to get across, and was rather just kind of /there/. This makes it feel lifeless for me and I wanted more where there was emotion attached to the lines like the last line in the first stanza, which felt a bit melancholic, but the rest of this didn't really have anything.
We get it, the narrator gambles a lot, You don't really need to address this over and over again in each stanza, instead, develop this. Gambling is something that's not usually considered a healthy habit, though this emotion wasn't really dragged out by the poem. I wanted you to more use it to your advantage that people can get addicted to gambling, and maybe you could have made some metaphors about gambling itself about how it's a risk and you're putting things on the line with gambling, with also the chance of /gaining/ something. That would have been interesting to read, something that mentions how gambling is about possibly gaining something and possibly losing something.
The question in the first line didn't really make sense to me, what type of nightmares would they be having? I realize this is more of a followup line to the last stanza but there wasn't much forementioned about this. This is more what I was looking for earlier in the poem, but the question is, who would the narrator be gambling with while they're washing their hair or doing laundry? It doesn't really make all that sense to me. The line that stands alone is also worded awkwardly. I think what you're going for is "They tumble dry with heat, and I lay my chips, they won't explode." but if not, then this is another thing that I didn't really understand.
The second line of the stanza doesn't really fit in, and I suggest putting a comma after the first line because it doesn't really make sense to read it as "if it's a skills game a game of statistics"? but it made sense that the line is cut off and then continues in the second line, but it isn't directly clear. The "and"s in the second line of the stanza feel too wordy and it would be better if you simplified it down.
The third line had too much going on punctuation-wise in so little space, with a comma, a dash, a semicolon, and then a period. I honestly can't tell if you did this on purpose or not, if it was, keep it, but alter it so it isn't so close together? And if not, change it because it looks like a total mess.
There starts to be characters in the poem in the second part which, why weren't they introduced sooner? I'm genuinely curious if you just decided to throw them in or if this was something that was intentional. The Charlie and Alice characters both had interesting ways of showing different themes with Alice living longer doing what she wanted to do, while Charlie lived shorter while keeping himself from doing things. It was an interesting set of themes.
The end of the poem for me felt kind of weak, though it did come full circle with the thoughts in the beginning and felt very connected in the stanzas rather than being a bit off topic about the poem. My main thing was the potential that you had with this but it didn't really go anywhere for me, and it became wasted. Overall, the poem was decent, though a lot of the wording felt awkward along with some of the punctuation.
I hope this helped and have a great day!