by Oliviu Crâznic
Like every Sunday evening, I exercise my talents,
The girls are all around me, the ace is in my sleeve;
Well, I was born to win, as scheming is my nature –
And on this Sunday evening, I’m up to something big.
She’s sitting over there, across the poker table:
Her hair, blonde and curly – soft, golden waves on sand;
Her mermaid eyes have read me, forcing my hand to tremble…
She sends to me a smile, a smile back I sent.
And here we are, a team now – the game is almost ours,
Yet, if I lose my focus, the odds may play along;
One thousand million dollars will take us to Hawaii –
A card change I’m performing, the trophy keeps me strong.
The money on the table – I hear the angels calling!
Four aces make my fortune, that’s what I tell to you;
But when she shows her cards, I feel the skies are falling:
Beyond her sexy smile, she hid four aces, too…
About the author:
OLIVIU CRÂZNIC (b. 1978) is a Romanian writer, literary critic, poet, translator, anthologist and legal advisor. He published the Gothic novel …And Then The Nigthmare Came At Last (Vremea Publishing House, 2010), described by M. Pricăjan 
(in the celebrated cultural magazine Familia) as “The Walpole Moment in Romanian literature”. He was labelled as “Mr Gothic” in More Family Chronicles (Limes Publishing House, 2014), a book written by a famous literary critic, the recently knighted for “Cultural Merit” M. Opriță. He further published short stories and novelettes (most can be found in the special edition volume The Witching Hour, 2015, Crux Publishing House), very well received by the critics and the public. He is a contributor of various celebrated anthologies and magazines, alongside important names of the classic (Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Rudyard Kipling, H.P. Lovecraft, George MacDonald, Guy de Maupassant, Saki) or contemporary (George R.R. Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ian R. MacLeod, John Shirley) universal literature. He won numerous national and international prizes (2011 Galileo Best SF&Fantasy Volume Award, 2012 European Society of Science Fiction Eurocon Encouragement Award, 2015 RomCon Best Article Award etc.). He was a Bucharest International Literature Festival 7th Edition (2014) moderator (for The Science Fiction Evening, special guests: Richard K. Morgan and Paul J. McAuley) and a Final Frontier Bookfair 4th Edition (2015) special guest.
Author’s Official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/oliviucraznicofficialpage/?pnref=lhc