Prose Poem: Listicals

 

There may be a Santa Claus,

but there is no list.

I'm talkin' about The List --

the one that has the names

of all those who get to leave

Earth somehow or other

 before the asteroid hits

or the monsters invade or the 

oceans suck all the continents under.

You know, that list.

It's in a hundred movies and TV shows.

Not to mention novels, short stories,

and probably dozens of dirty limericks.

But I gotta tell ya --

I've searched for the past twenty years

for that confounded list,

hunting high and low,

suborning officials of the highest rank

and interrogating lowlife ratfinks.

The salarymen of Japan know nothing of it.

And the bushmen of the Kalahari simply shrug

their bare shoulders.

So once I satisfied myself The List didn't exist

 I decided to fill that obvious need with my

own List --

with a money-back guarantee; if you didn't 

get off the planet in time, your five-hundred dollar

fee would be cheerfully refunded.

So far, the following persons have signed up

and paid in advance:

Robert Reed

Nathan Draper

Robert Strong

Michael Fedo

Clarke Woodger

Bart Seliger

Oscar Halvorson

Sue Ellen Yund

Jed Boal

Jennifer Graham

Peter Rosen

Ethan Bauer

Joseph Palazollo

John Schwartz

Dan Kelly

Tara Kelly

Johnny Diaz

Chip Cutter

Penelope Green

Don Van Natta Jr

William Wan

Coral Davenport

Paul Farhi

Andrew Ackerman

Amy Wang

Christina Zhao

Rachel Abrams

Margaret Young

Bruce Young

Ted Freedman

Motoko Rich

Peter Baker

Noah Bierman

Cindy Boren

Amy Snyder

Bruce Veldhuisen

Tom Hanks

George Clooney

Jordana Green

Ben Ellis

Lizette Alvarez

Joe Morgenstern

Rob and Laura Petri

Jacob Bunge

Mark Mauer

Jerry Seinfeld

Mitt Romney (and family)

 Jesse Newman

and others too numerous

to mention.

Anyone reading this post

and wanting to take advantage

of my December Sale

(two passengers for the price of one)

should contact any member of the

outgoing Trump administration --

they're ALL paid in full, and, in fact,

eager to get off world as soon as possible.

They'll sell you a ticket pronto, pup.