Will the sun rise tomorrow?

Can we rely on waking from sleep?

Does the heart beat one more time?

Is the next breath pre-ordained?

 

Even man-made insurance guarantees

are made meaningless by the small print

by their terms and half-lives

by the statistics of probability

and some smart-arse binary code.

Yet still we cling! Believe and hope;

pay the brain-washing subscriptions

and continue living on a precipice

having convinced ourselves it’s not.

 

As with stock markets, inflation rates,

 speculation and fear itself

all are illusory, subjective, fluid, relative.

 

Thinking, when we get recompensed

for a shoddy kettle,

 refund for spilt ink on a new carpet,

compensation for false promises

failed surgeries, dangerous drivers

besides

quittance from fraudulent investors

fees for slick deals,

perfidious partner’ settlements

even lottery windfalls or inheritances

and service bonuses

(ill-gotten gains discluding)

that this is not just reliable, secure

but under guarantee.

Indemnified for ever.

 

Ostrich heads in sand, ears plugged

not wanting to know or see

randomness and chance at work

let alone cosmic chaos or consequence;

accidents in the kitchen, on the road

violence in the bank and bedroom

danger in the work place, 

the young - just being young

 and the older, naturally falling apart.

 

Then the planet itself,  inherently alive

with its storms, eruptions, floods and fire.

The systems themselves:

meteorite falls, solar flares, polar flips.

Humanity itself

 - innate in entrepreneurial risk-taking:

how it reacts, defies, subverts

unlikely to think long-term or selflessly;

everyone needing to do their own thing:

me/mine first.

Survival or panic the primary responses

to necessary disaster.

 

The final paradox,

given that Man sees himself as rational

a creature of logical intent,

who supposedly follows the science

(whatever that sacrilege means…)

is that as a collective they prove unable

to see that logic through

or stick to the relevant rules.