Poems About the Lottery
The Lottery Limerick
In a village there was once an annual lottery
Where winning wasn’t exactly lucky
For the winner was stoned,
And in pain they groaned
Dying as victims of assault and battery.
Anonymous
The Cruelty of the Villagers(Tanka)
I saw her fall dead
With stones raining upon her
No one tried to stop
Grateful their names were not drawn
None were saddened by this loss.
Anonymous
Ode to Tessie Hutchinson
When I think of her, my heart aches
As though hemlock I have drunk
The very memory of her death makes
Me lose all my spunk
Her death was a sad one
Lynched by even our four year old son
No mercy she was shown
All for tradition’s sake she was stoned
She was innocent, never hurt a fly
Spent her final moments screaming
Yet the stones kept flying by
And in despair she began to cry
Old Man Warner, the wretched man
Said we were crazy to stop the lottery
Oh he was such a great fan
Of this legalized battery
For tradition’s sake
I have lost a wife
And the children, their mother
Sometimes I lie in bed awake
Staring at the moon
And I wonder what my life would’ve been like
If she hadn’t picked that paper, on the 27th of June.
Mr Hutchinson
Elegy for the Victims of the Lottery
Tradition is important, they say
Even when lives are lost
And the innocent are slain
But yet I continue to host
Once a long year
On the 27th of June
Everybody trembles with fear
For the lottery is not a boon
Men draw for their household
Pray they don’t get picked
But when they see a dot in bold
Their future they can predict
The boys, they spend all afternoon
Gathering a pile of rocks
And when the time comes, they act like a goon
And throw them en bloc
Oh how terrifying the final moments must’ve been
Seeing people you trusted all your life
Commit against you a great sin
And on deaf ears fall your cries of strife
You lie on the ground bleeding
And wish the practice had been subject to abolition
But take some
In a village there was once an annual lottery
Where winning wasn’t exactly lucky
For the winner was stoned,
And in pain they groaned
Dying as victims of assault and battery.
Anonymous
The Cruelty of the Villagers(Tanka)
I saw her fall dead
With stones raining upon her
No one tried to stop
Grateful their names were not drawn
None were saddened by this loss.
Anonymous
Ode to Tessie Hutchinson
When I think of her, my heart aches
As though hemlock I have drunk
The very memory of her death makes
Me lose all my spunk
Her death was a sad one
Lynched by even our four year old son
No mercy she was shown
All for tradition’s sake she was stoned
She was innocent, never hurt a fly
Spent her final moments screaming
Yet the stones kept flying by
And in despair she began to cry
Old Man Warner, the wretched man
Said we were crazy to stop the lottery
Oh he was such a great fan
Of this legalized battery
For tradition’s sake
I have lost a wife
And the children, their mother
Sometimes I lie in bed awake
Staring at the moon
And I wonder what my life would’ve been like
If she hadn’t picked that paper, on the 27th of June.
Mr Hutchinson
Elegy for the Victims of the Lottery
Tradition is important, they say
Even when lives are lost
And the innocent are slain
But yet I continue to host
Once a long year
On the 27th of June
Everybody trembles with fear
For the lottery is not a boon
Men draw for their household
Pray they don’t get picked
But when they see a dot in bold
Their future they can predict
The boys, they spend all afternoon
Gathering a pile of rocks
And when the time comes, they act like a goon
And throw them en bloc
Oh how terrifying the final moments must’ve been
Seeing people you trusted all your life
Commit against you a great sin
And on deaf ears fall your cries of strife
You lie on the ground bleeding
And wish the practice had been subject to abolition
But take some