Rolling Devils' Dice

Poor devils,
we live in rented spaces:
a bad virus from death,
a false accusation from jail,
where poor drunks stay for months
for fifty-dollars bail

The smarter of us
don't gamble at cards or dice,
or at slot machines,
but we gamble nonetheless,
sooner or later,
in the cosmic casino

The ceilings full of stars,
there's art and girls,
it's always open bar,
and everyone counts cards.
But the real action's
in the basement down below:
dark games with dark rules
and if you don't already know them,
you don't go down there

This is where Satan lost his raise on Jehova
and Job was squeezed into two boxes,
shook up and thrown around the table
for years,
till he won God a handsome pile of chips,
which God later lost to a lesser demon, Pedophillia,
betting on the virtue of certain Catholic priests

This is where poor devils,
hoping to win our dreams,
gamble with solid realities;
the grim reaper stands by the only door
and with his thousand floating eyes
watches everyone,
and his assistant writes down the bets
and, afterward,
cleans his master's scythe

First, we listen to the devil dice,
which growl with a thousand tongues
all at once,
differently to different ears,
speaking in parables and equivications,
equations and codes

Lighted and blinded
by the flashing green light of now,
we look through the floating sands of time
and try to see which seeds will thrive,
and which will die

One might stake his conscience
against another's freedom,
his house
against another's life,
or his sanity against and for
another's wife.
We bet on our genetics,
our savvy and our tricks;
We bet against the house
and against each other...
we bet against our friends,
we bet against our brothers

we pick our numbers
and we pick our people,
and the devils' dice are thrown