They Always Come In Threes

The master plunged down to his knees As strength gushed swiftly from his limbs. His proud possessions drifted by While tears streamed freely, proud and grim. The prize snatched by the dragon then. The master grieved, as well his wife. The fluid seeped and filled the ground, But stabbed him as a long-blade knife.

A new vat graced the cryptic base
And dosh in thousands then changed hands.
His checkbook light, his spirits low,
He paid the man from foreign lands.

The master set upon his couch,
The sweat from labor spanned his brow.
A shriek he caught, it was his mate.
He thought, "Good Gosh, what is it now?"

Descended now to cellar still
The master breathed a weighty sigh.
"What do you want, my stunning bride?"
He held before her forlorn eye.

"There is no heat," she said with ache,
"The motor's dead, what do we now?"
The master stooped and peered inside,
But fixing it he knew not how.

Sir Edwin came and sold them new.
Forsooth he seized four hundred more.
"The poorhouse will be our next home,"
He thought, ere Ed trod out the door.

The master's wife laid down her pate
As heat anew filled hearth and bone.
The master groaned and rested, too,
"If this keeps up we'll need a loan."

He shut his eyes and clutched her hand,
And stroked her elbow and her knees,
Then settled down and sighed and said,
"I hope these things don't come in threes."

POSTSCRIPT

A few days passed, the master dreamed
And worked and slept, his visage beamed.
With all things good inside his world,
All things were right, or so it seemed.

But fate can kill the sweetest thought,
Can waste the world, or so we're taught.
He came from work, his wife in tears,
What could be wrong? They hadn't fought.

What had he done? Why did she cry?
What did I do? He asked her why.
She look through tears and held his hand.
"Computer data doesn't lie."

"I've run the stats and run the sums.
I've seen the end, my heart it numbs.
I cannot lie, it makes me sad.
Beware the day, the taxman comes."

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