Poetry by D.W. Walker

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Legislating Luck

Statisticians say that Friday the 13th isn't unlucky at all.
But who cares?
Mythology beats probability hands down.

What do we do about it?

Maybe we turn it into a traditional Sunday,
Where nothing's open, nothing happens, nothing can go wrong,
So if you're out of food or get sick,
It's your bad luck.

Maybe we abolish it altogether.

What happens if you fall through an unexpected hole in the calendar?
Do you break your leg or vanish into another dimension?
Or do you use it to dodge appointments and meetings
Because you thought that they were tomorrow?

If we want a regular pattern,
So that calendar packs of pills still work,
Why not get rid of Fridays altogether,
So we don't waste half a working day going down to the coast?

For consistency, we can dump the 13th of each month too,
Though every 14th some spoilsport is sure to play the daylight saving trick
And say "it's really the 13th".

Okay, there will be an F-One-Three bug in all the world's software,
And some people with no birthday will miraculously stay young,
But for the rest of us, it's all fixed.
Shorter working week, fewer days in the year, no bad luck.

Until some wet blanket invents a new unlucky day,
Like Monday the 17th or the first Tuesday in November.

David Walker

 

Copyright © D.W. Walker, 2009


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