To visit Martin's writing website, press here.


July 1, 2020

The Quarantine Chronicles, Day 78

DAY 78: Numb to the Numbers
number and number we read/hear
60 70 80, 1 million 2 3 4, who cares?
if we're brave and not caught
up in a web of words, games, jokes
and desires all in a doomed
attempt at pathetic escapism
then we listen/read the numbers
and the tragic stories of death
and pain behind them and even
then, even then, we cannot hold
in our small brains all those
numbers -- like the poor who
follow the rich, she's a millionaire
he's a billionaire, they're trillionaires
-- what does that mean when you're
making minimum wage and
shopping at FoodMaxx to save
50 cents per can of tunafish --
it's all nonsense, too out there.
now some people today are
taking advantage of the new
(premature I say) loosening
of restrictions to go out and
smell the flowers out there
but me, I'm not a guinea pig
for government researchers only
interested in numbers, I'm
staying in because: I am not
a number; I am a free man.
Free, but increasingly numb.