The Wild Card

The long second hand slips
To the clock's lower lip.
The pendulum arm swings back hard
Posting guard for yet another cycle's turn.
Laughter filters into an anxious anguish.
Anguish begets  a lonesome lament.
My lament  becomes a thousand
Fevered intangible events.
These events were meant to be my epiphany
Ordained to fly me straight to the upper heavens.
Now I fall from these hallmark achievements
That were never quite completed.
 
The clock has now struck the midnight hour.
While the pendulum swings again with ruthless power.
The wild card has been pulled and I know the joker is wild.
This ghostly ghoul of a guest
Has come a calling once again
And made himself an unwelcome resident,
Inside the walls of my inner pallor.
He never seems to want to leave
But would rather find joy and glee
By tormenting me with constant mockery.
This soulless spectre smothers me
Like a strangling cover of unwanted rubber.
His glib, glum rueful rubs, rib me
With rye remarks, that send me off the rails.
He unmasks my every reason I've come to fail.
He situates and instigates me to believe,
Life would be all the better without me.

Now I am on my knees as I somberly plead
So I might spare myself from my own dark ongoing.
Inside I must find my chamber key
That unlocks the inner facility to hedge against his bets.
One that states that there is yet
A thousand and one unsung sonnets,
And twice as many souls to love and honor.
Than there are even more adventures left yet unexplored.
There is all this and so much more than mere words can inform,
The wonder of which is the whole sum of human glory.
Thus I say nay, I won't play the wild card's wicked game.
He may forever be the monkey on my back,
A ghoulish, unwelcome quest. But I will pay him no mind,
And remain heedless of his demented design
To bring me still closer to my demise.
The game has lost its luster, so I must muster
A laugh at my own expense.
This is far more than I will ever pay to play
Upon the table of his high stakes game called the Wild Card.