Cutting Cards 1st edit

[billy]

i think it hinges on how you see the title. is it a metaphor or an artform.
the gambling metaphors are too many for it not be about gambling. i struggled for a fair bit of the first 2 stanza but that could be my fault.

"Cutting Cards"

Catatonic is safe,
but It's me who wears
the dead fur.
I cannot howl anymore.
No more edge in winning
the high-minded marathon.
Books no longer set ablaze.
Tails no longer wag me stiff.
Now I sit calmly at the would someone sit [b]at the secretary of state?[/b]
Secretary of State like
other plain-faced fucks,
acting like the music
doesn't really suck, and
maybe I'll sip latte' and
watch Wheel of Fortune tonight.

They miss some of the old
music my mind could play:
the popular songs that came
close enough to the edge to
make them laugh and
fornicate in their pants just
enough not to explode - as if,
as if, as if.

I stacked two here,
dropped one there,
played dice at the lonely
casino on the edge of town,
always losing more than
my neurons afford. i think this is the most telling line of the poem in that it's not money you're losing but something more, sanity maybe.
Looking down at the
bottom of the well, I
remember the shark that
almost ate me.
Refill.

this whole stanza shouts of being on your own, drowning your sorrows and losses. (though i'm probably wrong ) i do think this is the poem