You can build a Lisp to stay close to the metal with zero-cost abstractions. Most people drawn to Lisp are wanting productivity instead of max performance. Besides, the commercial Lisps and fastest in FOSS are really fast.
There was a systems type of Lisp called PreScheme that was closer to what you're envisioning. Carp also aims at no-GC, real-time use. Finally, ZL was C/C++ implemented in Scheme with both their advantages compiled to C. Although done for ABI research, I've always encouraged something like that to be done for production use with tools to automatically make C and C++ library bindings.
There was a systems type of Lisp called PreScheme that was closer to what you're envisioning. Carp also aims at no-GC, real-time use. Finally, ZL was C/C++ implemented in Scheme with both their advantages compiled to C. Although done for ABI research, I've always encouraged something like that to be done for production use with tools to automatically make C and C++ library bindings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_48
https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp
http://zl-lang.org/