Short Wager Poems

If she, 
a wager
odds are mine
a chance worthy bet
that love 
may not be 
life’s regret...

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My blind  
Loyalty never changes
I'll give the
Lembombo mountains away
And prove that true love exists...

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tails wag
  heads wager
tails steady
  heads stagger
tails are honest
  heads can lie
so I pick tails
  every time...

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Whinging Willy sure felt silly
Placing a wager on a chestnut filly
Who ran around all willy nilly
Bringing up the rear in the Derby of Dilly...

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Blaise Pascal awaits his last call 
beneath Saint Etienne-du-Mont's tall 
columns and old rood screen.  God's nature, 
pray, ups the odds on his last wager....

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There once was a reverend named Frost,
Who Satan wanted no matter the cost,
A soul I'll wager you,
For all things I can do,
I agree, said the reverend, get lost....

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The Biltmore House gardens are lush
And the rooms so ornate you must gush
     But with 43 loos
     That the guests got to use
I would wager the owners were flush!...

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Feeling like The Lone Ranger
With my kemosabe friend fighting danger
A horse named Silver
Summer or winter
Baddies cringe when they meet, I'll wager...

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Speak the truth
at your own risk
Wager fortune
for just one kiss
Walk the tightrope
of joy and pain
No past or future
—the moment gained

(The New Room: January, 2024)
...

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I bet moonbees sting
And zap when they zing
I'll wager it's true
They love flowers too...

In hot Texas heat
At high-noon we meet
She guns me down cold
With bullets of gold...

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Are there times when you feel
You recognize a stranger, it's really surreal
No doubt they're a stranger
But you'd even wager
In another life, you were your own neighbor...

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There lies within a heart
Is all existence of an art.
It's blood pumping way
May be of a grey.
Blackened is dismay,
But who am I to say?
For the world is at wager!
Can't you tell of a hater?...

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shackled
daily wager
sweat of brow not so sweet
muscle and sinews strain, work out
to earn dough for bread, and to work out, too
cyclic diurnal grind of life
cliched, i know, but true
god's creation
enchained...

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Were you one believe, the body stole away
Were you one to wager, at foot of the cross
Or were you watching through tears, knowing the loss
And were you one who saw him, standing that day
Which ever you were, his presence on earth will stay...

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inquisitive nymph
phantoms of yesteryear lurk
folly of wager

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(5-7-5 checked with howmanysyllables.com)

14 October 2017

For the "Halloween Senryu" Contest sponsored by Laura Loo.
(3rd Place)...

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A masquerade
A big parade
A circus made
And telling true

Of just few men
Who jest and then
Will lie again
Again to you

A system fail
A country ail
And don't we pale
To these rich few

Must wager tell?
Let freedom swell
That we might find
Some way anew...

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Many brazen men have 
failed to win her sanctity;
shouting foolish taunts
to vex The Fays of Chastity.

How eager they are 
to gnash and gnaw
the bones of 
The Strange-Very Strange,

and how willing they are to wager 
away precious wit and whim
to win a prophetic poet bride 
for the musing of Taliesin.
 
....

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There’s nothing objective about spirit,
in that lies its strength and its truth

Unable to measure, only to feel,
its critics profane and uncouth

Science declares it the enemy,
its formulas explaining away

Why love has no bearing and within it we’re lost
—God’s execution unstayed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2020)...

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Foolish whims scatter

I played at life, but life played me harder,
Lived bet to debt, in life's Russian roulette
I place a wager, speed into danger
My foolish whims, scatter in mistral winds
Now tossed by waves, by blind forces of fate
How they orchestrate, time, distance and place

For bite size poetry contest
Line Gautier...

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Morning has come to the Lower East Side 
I get ready for the day 
After selecting decent threads 
I will decide what to do 
Meeting an old friend at 2 
I also must pick up my new glasses 
I want to see the city today!
Later on I will watch the NY Giants 
battle the Dallas Cowboys
Made a wager on the game
Go Eli 
Hope they win!...

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There are many reasons to stay in school.
While studying you learn to use every tool.
While you are at it, you become really cool.
Those that want to learn, rock and rule.
Some make fun, they can be cruel.
To get nasty like a Halloween ghoul.
Tell them to go sit on a stool.
Then see the odds and bet in a pool.
A wager on who is the real April fool?...

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The Better Man
by Michael R. Burch 
  
Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!
 
Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I checked!):
since he’s plagiarized Unknown, I’ll wager!...

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The foggy mist rose swiftly from the creek.
It encircled the pampas grass like a wreath.
The verdant razor blades of grass were bleak.
As the creamy plumes were wet beneath

On the qui vive for any movement of nature
Longing to linger and watch some more
Duty calls me to responsibility~ wager
If I respond to that call as before ...

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My children will take a match and throw it into this mess and laugh.
As everything goes up into a giant bonfire. 
The couches, the rugs, the pillows, my paintings.
I can visualize it, and I do not blame them.
I would do this too if I had to face cleaning out this mess.
I feel grateful that I will be long gone when it happens.
At least five days gone, I wager....

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I, light of foot and dark of thought,
give in before the tide
and clutch the pain I, “sigh”, forgot,
the dread I feel inside.

Embracing fear that’s still around
from heartbreaks out of mind,
I bare my chest. Of truth, I’ve found,
I like the naked kind.

Love is a loss I’ll reinvest;
I’ll wager soul and shirt.
To feel the love, I find it best
to reinstall the hurt....

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