(Poem) Number Me

Poststructural Pub
1

Number me

Number me among the breathing
And among those who, by virtue of number,
Receive deep discounts at the pharmacy.

Number me for the sake of order
And so that my name is not an impediment
To the even enforcement of policy.

Number me among those who go to Heaven
And not among those who go to Hell
Or those required to go to preschool dance recitals.

Number me among those who know whether
Attendance of preschool dance recitals
Is an aspect of Heaven or of Hell.

Number me among those at the emergency room,
By crisis of head or of bowel or of heart,
So that my I may fathom the nature of my emergency.

Number me among those who wait in digital queue,
For the agents of customer support,
Because my call is very important to them.

Number me among those who wait patiently
For said agents of support, especially technical,
Only to finally speak to a courteous man in India.

Number me for the purpose of Social Security,
Let that number be three and two and four
So that as I approach death I will be secure. And social.

Number me among the nourished
And not among those who are ranked
By the rule of first-come-first-serve.

Number me, otherwise, among those who stand in line
And not those who see no line
And who do not stand.

Number me among the ungrateful.


Dale Wisely

2

I like the poem, but why are you
ungrateful. I think you should be grateful. Best

3

You’re right. The ending is wrong. I’m waiting for a better one.


Dale

4

Gee, Dale…from the first stanza I thought you’d got your AARP card. :wink:

5

actually i think if you delete the third stanza, the ending fits nicely. just my two cents, i know nothing about poetry.

6

Number me among those in that stage of life
Who joyfully sit in preschool dance recitals
Knowing that this too will pass.

Number me among the grateful.

Or not, I can’t decide.

7

I dunno. That was the line that tipped me upside down, though I also don’t quite get it, which is kinda good.

Carol

8

Thanks for your comments, on- and off-board.

I’m considering two other versions. Here’s the 2nd:



Number me



Number me for the sake of order

And so that my name is not an impediment

To the even enforcement of policy.



Number me among the breathing

And among those who, by virtue of number,

Receive deep discounts at the pharmacy.



Number me among those who know whether

Attendance of preschool dance recitals

Is an aspect of Heaven or of Hell.



Number me among those at the emergency room,

By crisis of head or of bowel or of heart,

So that my I may fathom the nature of my emergency.



Number me among those who wait in digital queue,

For the agents of customer support,

Because my call is very important to them.



Number me among those who wait patiently

For said agents of support, especially technical,

To speak to a courteous man in India.



Number me for the purpose of Social Security,

Let that number be three and two and four

So that as I approach death I will be secure. And social.



Number me among the nourished

And not among those who are ranked

By the rule of first-come-first-serve.



Number me, otherwise, among those who stand in line

And not those who see no line

And who do not stand.



Number me among the grateful and the ungrateful,

The rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick,

The forgiven and the unforgiven,







Dale Wisely



The third option would be to drop the last stanza.

The fourth option would be, as someone wisely suggested, to let it sit for awhile. You know, sort of “throttle back.”


Dale

9

It’s very promising.

Lines, queues, are good things. I’ve been
in places where the idea
hadn’t taken root. What
a mess.

'Thinking about a girl who looks lot like you,
She didn’t have the time to wait in the queue…

10

edited because I changed my mind.

11

Number me among those
Who have attended Pre-school dance recitals at the age of 54…

And have been grateful to have
A beautiful young daughter
Who asked me to be there…

I am blessed…

Best.
Byll

12

I’m not sure of the second version. The ending stanza seems to lose the focus the first version has.

13

I agree. The first version had a shocking directness to it.

14

The orig. works for me. It could be argued that the stanza by stanza recital of ups and downs, the annoyances and the compensations, is actually a list of thinly disguised luxury problems. We experience illness, but there are emergency rooms, I’m here to write this, and so on. There is an implicit awareness that these little ‘slinglets of irritating fortune’ will soon pass. And so, the author comes clean. In recognizing and owning up to his lack of gratitude he signals his awareness that, without some acceptance of these inevitables, he will be estranged from gratitude. In ‘ratting himself out’ he is admitting his humanity, because he knows all of this.

But it is sometiimes hard to keep that in sight. That is what the poem points to for me.

Sometimes, the thing that makes a document a great text is the willingness of folks to treat it as such.

Thanks Dale for providing us with a great text!

Tom D.

15

Thanks. I had a poem called “Akeldama” published in AMERICA (The national Jesuit weekly). It was accepted for publication by Paul Mariani, their poetry editor, who happened to be a favorite poet of mine. The version they published had two stanzas at the end which the first version didn’t. Although the additional stanzas give it a different element, to this day I think it’s a better poem in the shorter version. I’ve been showing “Number Me” to some poets and, so far, they are evenly divided between the original and the 2nd version. So it goes.

Hey. How 'bout that Lord of the Rings thing? Maybe I ought to see one of those movies!

I was backing Lost in Translation, but couldn’t blame the Academy for honoring Peter Jackson & company nor could I begrudge the Oscar to Sean Penn. Glad Sofia won for screenplay, anyway.

I’m going to work, in spite of the fact that this nasty URI has crawled into my chest. Later.

Dale

16

Yes.

I found a copy of Procol Harum’s Live at the Edmonton on CD.

Yippee. Haven’t heard it in 25 years.

Dale