When it comes to comprehending numbers, don't listen to the poets - if they understood basic math, they wouldn't be poets. Listen to the accountants, instead. A poet will sing how 13 is an unlucky number (no feat of the imagination there). She may even pull out her license and irrationally rhyme how some numbers are unethical. As if ethics applies to math and money. An accountant will cogently observe that no matter what 13 may be it is not a big number. 17 is bigger - though still not big. 27, 32, 50, and 59 are big but no bigger than a modest PR problem. 13 does not make a synagogue a concentration camp. Especially when 13 is actually 12 because the killer was 1. The accountant will clarify that 12 is much smaller than billions. The poet will protest: billions is the sound of outdoor concerts becoming killing fields and classrooms becoming slaughterhouses. Poets call those children and concertgoers blood diamonds. An accountant now concerned about the bottom line will counter that "blood diamonds" is a misleading and malicious metaphor manufactured by malcontent poets to cynically incite the sympathies of simpletons. There hasn't been a market for blood diamonds in years. So children and concertgoers are not blood diamonds. They aren't even innocent bystanders - because they were terrified, when the shooting started, and tried to run away. If you must name them, the accountant will conclude that the children and concertgoers were coal ash or feathers or other unavoidable byproducts of businesses worth billions. What, the accountant would like to know, is a poem worth? Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief First published in The Broadkill Review
Tag Archives: Guns
FLACCID at Pungent Sound
Pungent Sound Technical College of Technology recently welcomed Firearms Loving Americans Constantly Confronting Innovation and Decency (FLACCID), who held their annual convention celebrating the Second Commandment of the U.S. Constitution.
FLACCID members were everywhere. And they invited our school chaplain, Father Orifice (pronounced Orifeechee – people always say it wrong for some reason), to give the opening prayer. Father Orifice proudly reports, “FLACCID members stood at attention throughout the prayer – it was a glorious thing to see.” So with such positive reviews, we decided to print his prayer here and hopefully you’ll be equally aroused to action.
The Second Commandment
God is a Gun. And the Son of God is a Gun - making God, Son, and Gun one. And God sent his only Gun to man so slights and sins could be avenged and trespasses need not be forgiven. And you shall not separate man from Gun lest you feel the wrath of Gun. Father Orifice, Chaplain of Pungent Sound Technical College of Technology