… the “Law of Frequency of Error” … reigns amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, the greater the anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.
………………………………………………………………. —Victorian statistician Francis Galton
The Frequency of Error
The frequency of error
is not a count of radio waves
or of an articulation of sound
radiating from me to you
through space with
ample atmosphere
The frequency of error
is the number of times,
in the fog of Me,
I’ve stumbled into doors
and bashed my head
on low-hanging branches
of the tree-of-knowledge-
of-good-and-evil
yet against all odds
have lived to tell the tale
The frequency of error
is not a dulcet wave
but a mob of mad particles
which routs the better angels of my nature
hammering them with crude clubs
made by my own hand
in fits of.id
by Jim Culleny; August 2009