The Road to Mandalay Bay

It was only just Monday,
perhaps he didn’t like them either.
Explosives were found:
it was lucky
he stayed the old kind
of baby boomer.

Numbers, numbers,
we are numbed by numbers.
Did we still need him?
He was 64.
He had millions.
There were 42 guns
in his apartment:
such large numbers.

Blue-collared, white-faced people
listening to trailer-park,
former-miner music,
at the wrong end of the strip.
The poor people weren’t sleeping
while the stars were out that night.

Numbers, numbers,
so important for accountants.
While the Peter Principle President
quotes the scriptures,
he forgets to mention Numbers:

And with you there shall be
a man of every tribe
to assist in taking the account,
and to see that it is
exact and perfect.

Perhaps it was a settling
of some or other account.
Perhaps it was the other
side of the ledger,
more deaths in the balancing
of the second.

Perhaps there is no resolution,
no entry at the bottom of the page,
no meaning in all these numbers.
Perhaps we are lost to all
emotions but rage and grief.