A rich man
Spent forty-four billion dollars
To stop people from calling him names on a website.
101000111110100110101011100000000000.
Forty-four [2019-2023 CE]
The number of millions of people on this planet
Who have fallen into poverty in the last four years
While a new billionaire was created every 30 hours.
Forty-four [1969-2023 CE]
The lowest total number of oil spills in US waters
In any given year of the last fifty-four.
Another hurricane rages on.
Forty-four [432 - 440 CE]
The number of Pope Sixtus III
Who spent oodles constructing churches while people starved
As popes did. And do.
Forty-four [1781 CE]
The number of Mexican settlers who founded Los Angeles,
The city of angels, where people are detained for simply existing,
And whose wealthy won't pay writers for their work.
Forty-four [1936 CE]
The number of days autoworkers were on strike
Against rich folks who oppressed them.
A temporary victory.
Forty-four [1934-2021 CE]
The uniform number of Hank Aaron
Who couldn't stay with teammates in hotels due to his melanin level.
May he rest in power.
Forty-four [2021-2023 CE]
The number of US states that have introduced bills
To restrict teaching about racism and sexism.
Because knowledge is power and the powerful can't have that.
Forty-four [1927 CE]
The number of innocents who died in the bombing of a school in Bath, Michigan.
It quickly fell out of the news cycle and out of history books.
As these things do.
Forty-four
The atomic number of ruthenium
The number of sides on a tetracontakaitetragon
The number of candles in a Hanukkah box
The number for UK's telephone country code
The number in Vicks Formula for cough medicine
The number of the Coast Guard's lifeboat
The number of the president the rich did not like
The name of Satan's nephew in Mark Twain's unfinished novel, The Mysterious Stranger, in which teenage boys witness witch trials, burnings, hangings, death, and mass hysteria at the hands of religious fanatics.
Forty-four
A bullet romanticized as "Magnum"
How many has it killed?
Forty-four
The number of the Nazi Sturmgewehr assault rifle.
It's now made in America.
Forty-four
The Psalm that says, "Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
Forty-four [1944 CE]
The year of D-Day; the year the Nazis were making their final stand
In the war that they started for power.
The good guys fought and won that war
As they fight in Ukraine, now.
If good guys exist, at least.
Maybe they don't.
That rich man who paid the $44 billion
Would have been happy if the Nazis won.
He has blamed Jews for the ruination of the website he destroyed himself
Like the Nazis blamed Jews for the destruction of the German economy
When the culprits were capitalism and ego.
He turned off the satellites he had given Ukraine
So they couldn't fight the Russian fascists.
One rich man with all that power.
The power of life or death.
The binary god.
Forty-four [AD]
The year St. James the apostle was executed by Herod's grandson,
Who also died that year, because the rich perish, too.
We're all equal in death.
Forty-four [BC]
The year some Roman senators tried to save their republic
By assassinating their egomaniacal dictator
Whose family started a civil war after he died.
One rich family wrecking lives for power.
The empire eventually crumbled.
Forty-four
The verse in Matthew 24, which says, "So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
Are you ready, greedy thieves? The Son of Man is all of us.
Beware the Ides of March.
