death by numbers

i turn on the death toll

channel which

keeps track of the dead

and near dead,

all of the dying, day after day.

the grim reaper station

with glum

faces

giving us the numbers.

a hundred thousand

two hundred thousand.

the tote board keeps rising.

it's good optics.

keeps the viewer scared and

watching.

the fear mongering is persuasive.

and then

the soap commercials

come on,

the cruise vacations,

the restaurants.

booze.

christmas toys, organic

foods.

6 hundred thousand dead

from smoking,

five

thousand suicides. 

a thousand

from heart attacks,

nine hundred car crashes,

three hundred from lightning

strikes.

six from falling off of ladders.

nine

stabbings

five hundred from gunshot

wounds, all in just one day.

cancer, aids. wars. the plague.

alcohol

drugs,

drownings in the bay.

throw me the remote, what else

is there

to watch today?