You can't do that unless you're on the list.
Tell me your hopes, desires, etc.
Then let me check them against the list.
Once upon a time, there was a list.
Through all the ages,
through every epoch and century,
the list endures.
Behold a lamb, stumbling through the verdant fields of April,
aware only of its mother's calm presence,
the sun warming its back,
and the list.
Those not on the list will be stopped,
tuned up,
seized and thrown from moving vehicles into ditches
where they may contemplate the majesty of the list.
In the Great Hall of the List,
a lamb clatters aimlessly across the marble floor.
Where is its mother?
Where are the dewy clover stalks,
the fragrant dawn-lit pasture,
the benevolent black-and-white dog, the lamb's guard and guide?
The list is silent.
You should be, too, except to sing its praises.
_____
for The Sunday Muse #101 and for day 6 of my 39 poems in 39 days.
Yes, lists of every kind, and so sadly there have been those listed that ended up dead. On the brighter side of lists...there are those that must cross off everything on their list at the grocery store. LOL (that would be my ex-husband) Now days I hope people are not trying to deal with a list while getting through the store with social distancing. You have such an amazing talent to display the crazy in it's realism and in the surreal. The questions add to the feeling it stirs. You never disappoint my friend. I don't call you the "rock star poet" for nothing!!
ReplyDeleteDeceptively simple and prosaic; I say deceptively because I don't know why my breath should catch at the penultimate stanza, yet it does. You've reduced humanity down to its least attractive common denominator, then nailed all the lambs to the wall. An eye opening morning read, even if coffee is gentler.
ReplyDelete"The list is silent....." One wonders when one's own name will come up on it.........yikes.
ReplyDeleteA chilling message in your poem .... respectfully I withdraw from the list.
ReplyDeleteI hope I can avoid the Great Hall of the Lists. This is somber and chilling!
ReplyDeleteTerrifying. This does an excellent job of alienating life from whatever that list came to be.
ReplyDeleteLists are scary these days. When I got to the lamb in your poem, I could feel it speak of my anxiety about the world we are living in now. Tomorrow hold a bigger question mark than most of us have ever known. Thanks for writing it! Oh, and I don't know what happened to your comment on my poem. I never saw it. The weirdness of the web.
ReplyDeleteI sort of listed to one side like a sinking ship while reading this. Then entered into the lists for a joust with the keepers of the list. Orwell and 1984 seem so cute in comparison, but eerie like the Carpenters. More Kafka and Catch-22, you can't get on the list because you are not on the list, or we have the list but you can't know.
ReplyDeleteYour first stanza distills the paradox for me so much that the history and examples that follow, biblical as they seem, make me cringe. Poor little lambs who've lost their way . . . in the present all nurture will be taken from them . . . and if we protest, it's jail or firing.
ReplyDeleteI think of science fiction books, lists, and things that become banned. Excellent write.
ReplyDelete