“The San Andreas Fault cost me an empire!”

So said the bearded bum who stank of booze.

We sat around a railway sleeper campfire,

“I always thought,” he said, “I couldn’t lose.”

The rest of us got comfy, didn’t answer,

a bedtime story wouldn’t go astray,

the loneliness of hoboes was a cancer,

one’s only friends the tales of yesterday.

“I teamed with Gilly Bates right after college,

he said computer consoles had to shrink,

I found the breakthrough in my Father’s garage,

a silicone concoction in the sink.

“I showed the chip to Batesy, he was gobsmacked,

he said his lifetime dream would come to pass,

computers would be small, petite and compact,

with one in every office, house and class.

“I hit the L.A. patent office next day,

a bunch of hopefuls there, I joined the queue,

the guy in front had some new kind of x-ray,

the man behind me said he’d cured the flu.

“I showed them both the chip and all my blueprints,

and told them how much Bates and me would make,

I should have waited till I had the patents,

but who knew that we’d have that bloody quake?

“The building started shaking, I was anxious,

the crowd began stampeding out the door,

I felt a blow and then I fell unconscious,

and woke a minute later on the floor.

“The chip was gone, my papers too were missing,

just dust and rubble where the room had been,

I hit the street, survival was a blessing,

the guys I’d met were nowhere to be seen.

“Back home I set to work and quickly crafted

a chip just like the first, a kind of clone,

and then I found that I’d been neatly shafted,

as Batesy called me on the telephone.

“As Gilly spoke, his words were like a torture,

he’d patented a chip a lot like mine,

so didn’t really need me in the future,

he had a partner, then he closed the line.

“I eased my pain by burning down a girls’ school,

then ran away to save the family shame,

I turned to drink and drifted in a whirlpool,

and moved out here to Boston, changed my name.”

He finished up his tale and sipped his liquor,

I looked around the bums in fire’s glow,

his story seemed to come straight from his ticker,

perhaps he told the truth - we’ll never know...

more of my FUNNY POEMS here