Winning Streak Poem by Mark Heathcote

When I'm on a winning streak
On the brink of something good
Then everything turns oblique.
When it's kismet again, it's bachelorhood.

When I‘ve got a winning lottery ticket
And about to savour an unlikely moment
It's then that anarchistic
Monster seals my fate; it's the oldest.

The story in the book that comes to pass
It's an unwritten law that one
When you finally find true happiness,
You'll lose it all again and be shunned.

You'll be turned off at every door.
Like a leper wishing you were never born
Every time I'm rising above the clouds
The next day, I'm drowning on the seafloor.

Every time I'm met with a smile
Wasn't then it followed by a bloody nose
From a fist, travelling like a missile
Oh, everything in this world is juxtaposed.

But it's better to gamble.
And take a storm head-on.
Then not ever know
What it is like never to be a winner at all.

It's better to be a panhandle.
With your riches in your blood
That makes you uncommonly strong.
It makes it easier for you somehow to survive hereon.

It's better to be a panhandle.
And gamble with a song in your heart.
Then to have nothing to lose at all.
And depart without ever having tears well up in your eyes.