Lola Plays Sharky For All The Money Poem by Ted Sheridan

For all the money and the girl seated at the end of the bar
He’s calling the eight ball in the far corner right hand pocket
Banked off the nine in the middle which will go in the left side
By adding the proper body English on the well chalked tip
Of his expensive hand crafted with pearl inlay one of a kind stick
He intends to do nothing less than win
His name is Sharky and his nose has a hole in the side of it
That in all likelihood it would take the Hope diamond to fill
His arms are tanned by the tropic sun and scaled like a fish
His mustache is streaked with blonde like his graying hair
And his smile is somewhat intermittent of all his teeth
He drinks Mount Gay rum but not the cheap lighter kind
He prefers his rum dark like his women and his eyes
When people inquire as to how he got his name
He shows them a picture of what he looked like in ninety eight
Before the sharks at the bank took his home and his name
He was working as a fishing guide down in the keys
And one day he spotted a couple kilos of the candy
That had drifted up under some mangrove trees
Then he points to his nose and laughs
Guess it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess the rest…he says
And with a stroke as smooth as a gator’s underbelly
Sharky sinks the shot and then turns to a give wink and a nod
To the girl named Lola seated at the end of the bar….

2007 © T Sheridan