What are the chances?

Ohioan Miles David Moore is an active participant in Washington, DC literary activities, including a reading series at Arlington's Iota Cafe.  The voice of his literary creation, Fatslug, adds jest and pathos to many readings.  In the poem below, Fatslug is victim of choice and chance:

   FATSLUG Has Picked Up Enough Pennies     by Miles David Moore

   to win the lottery 18 times,

   have six movie stars of his choice as lovers,

   end world hunger and war, cure cancer and AIDS

   buy Trump Tower as his home and hire

   The Donald Himself as the janitor.

   What he actually has received

   is roughly enough for a Big Mac & fries,

   in a town slightly cheaper than the one he lives in.

 

   The treachery of luck and money!

Moore's poem is found in his collection The Bears of Paris (The Word Works, 1995).  Continuing with humor and the role of chance, here is a limerick by Sir Arthur Eddington found in Fantasia Mathematica (Springer, 1958, 1997) -- one of the fun anthologies (another is The Mathematical Magpie) collected by Clifton Fadiman.

There Once Was a Breathy Baboon by Sir Arthur Eddington  

   There once was a breathy baboon 

   Who always breathed down a bassoon, 

        For he said, "It appears 

       That in billions of years 

   I shall certainly hit on a tune."