CARDS

Paul Kavanagh

I lost the intended title on a Royal Flush. Never play cards with a famous writer, I thought. On the second hand, a Straight Flush, I lost the similes and the metaphors. Irony gambled with allusions and heteroglossia fell to Four of a Kind.
        The famous writer offered me a cigar and a drink. He felt sorry for me. When you are in the presence of a famous writer, you never confess to being a nonsmoker or a lousy drinker.
        I lost the voice and tone on a Full House, followed by the didactic to a Flush.
        'Do you have any perverted sentences?'
        'What?'
        'Linguistically twisted.'
        'No.'
        When I lost the plot and index cards to a Straight, I knew I was in trouble.
        'When you are finished with the index cards, do you mind returning them?’ I asked.
        'No.'
        'Why?'
        'I fear plagiarism.'
        There were bits and pieces of syntax he did not care for.
        'A comma is a penny in my book,’ he said. ‘More whiskey?
        I folded a Three of a Kind and lost the story’s Aristotelian beginning, middle and end.
        'I’ll keep the middle and end; you can keep that weak opening and Aristotle. Philosophy is dead, like astrology and alchemy in my book.'
        I asked for an interlude, but I lost the interlude on a Two Pair.
        We talked of Theophrastus’s list.
        'Those Greeks,’ he said, ‘never flew to Cuba to see inner thighs stained with tobacco.'
        He took two and left me three: a giant mute, a moribund servant, and a crazed Marquis. I think he had an aversion to alliteration.
        Grinding poverty, brutal gestures, sexual depravity, unhappy marriages, sordid backgrounds and acute misery fell to One Pair.
        'I have terrible luck,’ I said.
        'They built Las Vegas for a reason,’ he said.
        He won all my favourite words. He will never use them.
        When I got up to go, he begged me for one last hand.
        I played.
        He won with a High Card.
        he took the capital letters, even the full stops