Statistics, damned statistics

Statistics,  damned statistics

Day 4 of the NaPoWriMo challenge is a big challenge. Create a poem using as many of the "twenty little poetry projects" originally developed by Jim Simmerman. There are too many to list but if you're interested,  you can find them at http://blogs.umb.edu/ntrefonides001/2018/01/26/automation-of-twenty-little-poetry-projects-by-jim-simmerman/.  I managed to fit in 5 out of the twenty, but in the end they became irrelevant as the poem took its own direction.



The daily stats are a marshy bog
In which I briefly stay afloat
Before sinking into utter incomprehension,
My only reassurance - the newsreader
Seems as swamped as I am.

Numbers follow numbers (all bad)
Each day is deja vu: more deaths,
In hospitals, in care homes
More shortages of PPE.

Each day the stats keep coming,
Relentless, baffling, heartbreaking:
Each number a person taken too early,
Dying alone, their family grieving.

This cannot go on.
One day we'll hear news about things that used to bore us:
Politics, sport, celebrity gossip,
We'll go back to normal
Not the 'new normal'
Not the 'old normal'
Just normal.

One day I'll walk once more on solid ground.



© Copyright 2020. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved






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