dr. e's beautiful blues in poetry

Doctor Hugh Everett
early changer of game-theory
as smart as they get
solved for Schrodinger’s cat
by saying it was alive on one timeline
and dead in another
it was simple as that
everything that ever could happen
has happened somewhere
or will or is happening
though played out across time and space
Doctor E’s implications get blurry
but he might’ve been right
with his many worlds theory,
listen:

in thousands of universes
today you died
in billions of more
you were never alive
in countless others
you were hit by a bus in two-thousand-five
but here you are breathing
here you are kicking
on this world you more or less thrive
what are you going to do about it?

if schrodinger’s cat
ever lived at that
then that little pet
is alive somewhere yet
due to a premise called
“quantum immortality”
every time that it died
a second world would arise
where the kitty would live
proceeding on to infinity
it would be the same for you or for me
however more and more absurd
the circumstances would be
there’s always somewhere we avoid death
and somewhere some version of us
would live on forever
come hell or high weather

yesterday ten thousand of you
slipped on a mini-hotel soap
cracked your skull open
and died

the day before yesterday one hundred thousand of you
an extinction-sized asteroid hit the earth
and you died
and everyone died
and everything died
except micro-organisms and
a few bugs that live deep down in the earth

the day before that a billion of you
choked on ham sandwiches or
on the shitter just like Elvis died
but for some unknown reason
today
this you
maybe only this you
today you are alive
what are you going to do about it?

are you going to finally tell her how you feel?
are you gonna leave town both hands on the wheel?
are you going to break into the
amusement park that won’t open for weeks
and fire up the rollercoaster illegally
to go for a ride now
in case you don’t make it through May?
in case you don’t make it
to Memorial Day?

tomorrow ten billion of you
will just miss the tornado
but get hit by a tree
you might not be one of them
but you don’t wanna count on
quantum immortality
do you?

so:
are you with me, Dr. Hugh?
does your rough many-worlds model
also apply to you?
are you crazy? did you die?
or was that just another lie
that your theory has disproved?
are you with me, Doctor?

you are alive, you are here
against all odds
against God’s better judgement
you weren’t shot today
poisoned eaten or bludgeoned
how amazing is that?
how unlikely is that?
crawl out of your box
like the spared kitty cat
what are you going to do about it
today?