Lists #2 Poem by Frank Avon

Sentences

are penalties
imposed
by oligarchic authorities;
you escape
only by crawling through
those narrow windows
of the sleek modernistic jail
in Ft. Lauderdale,
its clean, bristling white walls,
the rolls of barbed wire
over the twenty-foot fence
at the entrance -
one of the early skyscrapers
in the downtown area
near city hall
and the school board
and Florida Atlantic University,
with an ocean view

the roiling Atlantic,
with yachts and
sailboats and
fishermen who pay by the day
and cruise ships
at certain hours
headed out there,
way out there,
out
there.

On the other hand

lists

are free
like Medicare
like fresh air
like thinking (you think)
like love (that isn't)
like enterprise (that pays and pays)
like trade (that costs and costs)
like writing (according to a guy
named Elbow) ,

free, free, free,

fancy
for all,
for the asking
like daisies & dandelions
and honeysuckle vines.

Lists lean
(list you might say) .

Never mind.

Words
once over easy,
easier than ever,
so easy -

whole troops of fellows
line up

to enlist.