Head On

As does clash
this frequency
of world congestion.

Bracing for
another injection
of clairvoyance.

All presuming
entire prosperous
inherent risk.

We race
toward a brick wall
smashing all realities.

The elevators
of shifting platforms
take us upward.

[...] Read more

poem by Jodde Taylor
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Borstal Boys

(ian mclagan, ron wood, rod stewart)
Cell block five, how I hate bromide
With your coffee in the morning makes you so sterile
The corner gang never made a man of me boy
You know the walls are tall and the inmates scheme
Theres no one here thats more than seventeen
Bet your life theres a riot tonight in the mess hall
Listen
A letter from your home town makes you sad
You read it when the wardens had a second laugh
He said sentimental rubbish aint got no place in here boy
See the years roll on by
Such a senseless waste of time
What a way to reform
Call out your number
Whos a nonconformer,
Not me baby, oh yeah
Shakey brown didnt hang around
When a molotow didnt do its stuff
You went back in there and said it with a sawed-off shotgun

[...] Read more

song performed by Rod Stewart
Added by Lucian Velea
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Being is enlightenment, Becoming is ignorance

You are on the move
Always
On an elevator
Or a belt conveyor
That keeps moving
Steadily and at the same speed
Since the day
You landed on this earth

And this winch or conveyor
Is driven by time

No one else is on your belt
Either ahead or behind
And you are the lone
Passer by in your elevator

Each second
This mover takes you
To a new situation

[...] Read more

poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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A Philosophy

it is not how tall the buildings have grown
the presence of three elevators
that is not what progress is all about

you are telling me about how ateneo
has become an ivory tower rising above
the silence of Mt. Apo

so unlike our times
when rooms are crowded when noise
grow like grasses on the wild fields
uninhabited

let me ask you what happened to the playgrounds
of the children
and the chapel where Fr. Dot says mass all day
is the pine tree still there
and the pond beside
where the gold fish are swimming?

[...] Read more

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Robert Downey Jr.

Traveling down a road
with pills, weed
addiction written in stone

From highs to lows
going up and down
Chemicals reap what we sow
rehabilitation bound

Still I keep shuffling
my heavy muscle relaxed feet
Knowing this is the life of rockstars

Once you've reached the high
you still have to come down
and the way is steep

And when you come down
You can never take the stairs
The elevator is out of order

[...] Read more

poem by Justin Tallman Gonzalez
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I Believe

Valerie solanis took the elevator
Got off at the 4th floor
Valerie solanis took the elevator
Got off at the 4th floor
She pointed the gun at andy saying
You cannot control me anymore
I believe theres got to be some retribution
I believe an eye for an eye is elemental
I believe that somethings wrong if shes alive right now
Valerie solanis took three steps
Pointing at the floor
Valerie solanis waved her gun
Pointing at the floor
From inside her idiot madness spoke and bang
Andy fell onto the floor
I believe lifes serious enough for retribution
I believe being sick is no excuse and -
I believe I wouldve pulled the switch on her myself
When they got him to the hospital
His pulse was gone they thought that he was dead

[...] Read more

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sidewalk University

Sidewalk University a school we all know but wouldn't ancknoweledge.The teaching of hard life and inperfect people.Sneakers hung high off of telephone wires. Crowd walk ways and disrespectful people urine filled elevators.If you graduate you may survive the streets.Language in which others try to copy ebonicis is now in the dictionary.

I may want to travel to the great wonders of the world. Will I be safe? or will you see me on the eleven oclock news.Foreign ghettos and marvelous adventures will be great to see. My neighborhood I know each alley and each person.You call it dangerous I call it safe.You call it ghetto I call it home. Sidewalk University

Teaching about culture and style I learn more here then at harvard. Cumming personalities, rich food and life lessons all taught in one place My classroom Sidewalk University

poem by Lucinda Bryson
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When It Was Easy to Luxurize In High Rises

It would seem,
From a bird's eye point of view...
Those forced into social dysfunctions,
Are at a disadvantage.
Being intentionally deprived and depraved,
From a kind of lifestyle...
Those who supress,
Had enjoyed for themselves.
When it was easy to luxurize in high rises.
Some still manage to cling on!

But from their condos,
High above the ground...
Overdue utilities unpaid,
Does not keep the electicity or elevators...
Convenient.
Not for those stung by economic realities.
Nor is the air as fresh.
Or leftovers worthy to taste.
If nothing can be saved to keep refrigerated!

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Monopoly

Finally the day dawned when a monopoly owned everything in the
world
So it went looking for its stockholders to celebrate
But they were all owned by it they were all dead they were
someplace
Their photographs hung in elevators which went up and down up and
down carrying nobody
Everyone else was in bed doing exercises to get in shape for noon
Hey the monopoly said let's uncork the World Trade Center and get
blotto
Silence
The monopoly scowled
All it wanted was a little good-fellowship, like you get in the
highrise apartment-buildings
Then the sky got awful dark
Gee
And everyone was in bed frantically doing those exercises that get us in
shape for death
Exercises known as "kissing" "fucking" "caressing"
Everyone was unaware that they had been bought

[...] Read more

poem by Bill Knott
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Rue de Paris

Rue de Paris
Tres Miserables!
Los minutes expuestos por un solo minuto.
Porque?

It is a moment in time
An instant in time
Which leads many to ponder.

It is but a moment in time that counts
These precious
Seconds, seconds
Of life.

Rue de Paris
People running
People moving in masses
Elevator doors open and close
Releasing the embryos.

[...] Read more

poem by Elaine Oxamendi Vicet
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A Life Lived

Life of spite and defiance
To watch people tooling around on Mars
To celebrate the end of the last war
To attend the funeral of corporate personhood
76th wedding anniversary walking across the dry Ganga
Hundredth birthday drinking my age in pints of beer
Why don't you join me? Consider yourself invited
To throw a bushel of rose petals from the space elevator
Zero emissions ambulance sweeping me to the hospital
And I'll saddle up my Horse for the ride home
All bad things must one day end and so will I

poem by Tribhuvan Mendiratta
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From Zero

from zero i have to
go again to some

one like you.
for i am nothing

and will always be
nothing

without you.

and then you come
very simply
as a smile

a pat on my back
and then
a hold

[...] Read more

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Its Not The Way

We used to south of paradise
That was ok until you put your heart on ice
Walked out the door but you couldnt say goodbye
Hide away and left me lonely
When I asked you why
You wouldnt be precise
Now its my turn, start taking my advice
Its not the way that you love me
Its not the way that you care
Running down long back alleys
Pouting like a spoiled child
Youve been acting so crazy, driving me wild
Your heart is like an elevator
You tell me thats just human nature
Ive done all I can, I cant seem to change you
Its not the way that you love me
Its not the way that you care
Oh no, its not the way
Oh no, its not the way
Listen mister to what I say

[...] Read more

song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Hoodoo Man

Well I wonder what's exactly the matter.
Child you know the time.
Seemed like an hour.
Everything had changed.
I hold up my head.
Girl, I'm just trying to make you understand.
Well now, everybody tell me
Somebody hoodoo'd the hoodoo man.
Well now, I buzzed your bell this morning;
You had your elevator running slow.
I buzzed your bell in, woman,
Take me on the third floor.
Chorus
Second Verse
Chorus
First Verse
Chorus

song performed by Eric Clapton
Added by Lucian Velea
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Cheever's People

These beautifully grown men. These hungerers.
Look at them looking!
They're overdrawn on all accounts but hope
& they've missed
(for the hundredth time) the express
to the city of dreams
& settled, sighing, for a desperate local;
so who's to blame them
if they swim through swimming pools of twelve-
year-old scotch, or fall
in love with widows (other than their wives)
who suddenly can't ride
in elevators? In that suburb of elms
& crabgrass (to which
the angel banished them) nothing is more real
than last night's empties.

So if they pack up, stuff their vitals
in a two-suiter,
& (with passports bluer than their eyes)

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poem by Erica Jong
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Grown up kids..

The city full of neon and xenon,
Vaporizing old mercury,
As the inert gases are the best,
Not to feel the love of electrons.

Cozy malls and slippery tiles,
Protective sandals, shoes and chapels,
Gliding along the pretty petty stalls,
Glass barriers along the staircases,
Elevators, lifts and foyers..

Fast food chained the stomachs,
Of hungry crowd, where roasted,
Imported coffee and teas,
In tall white cups and glasses,
Just to taste and the rest to leave,
Branded shops hold the tagged garments,
Just to buy and keep unwrapped.

Sales is everywhere, but dollars is ours,

[...] Read more

poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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88

i just had the number
88
inside my head.

it is not a grade
not money.

it is a mark of what i have done
on the other side
of my life.

i outlive 3,000
going on to 4,000
i clap my hands, give myself a toast
of red wine
when i had my first 1,000

you must remember my 1,000 cranes
paper cranes
paper poems on cranes and other creatures

[...] Read more

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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About Lies

Because the buses were stopped in front of the railing
because the dolls in the lighted shop windows gesticulated
because the girl with the bicycle lingered outside the drugstore
because the carpenter broke the glass door of the beer hall
because the child was alone in the elevator with a stolen pencil
because the dogs had abandoned the seaside villas
because the rusty grater had been covered over by nettles
because the sky was ashen with a red fish
because the horse on the mountain was more alone than the star
because these and those both were hunted
because of this, only because of this, I told you lies.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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An Angel

An Angel…Or?
I knew as soon s she came in she was from
a place I hadn’t been… before. She was silent.
sat down and began some embroidery work,
a silk dress for a delightful nuptial.
By the entrance to a house we stood kissing,
the door was black as the entrance to hell,
and the ground was white as snow…her eyes
bottomless green, flickered in desire.
Search light, we had been caught in the glare
unbecoming lust, and ran to a bus shelter.
Silent rain like tears, knew I had to run away,
she wanted me to take the lift heavenward.
The elevator out of order, and her face was
lost in a miasma of the unremembered.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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In Translation

Arriving with no intepretator

Leaving with signals and signs

On the elevator

In the pressed drudged crowds

Filled by the strangeness of infatuation

Your first arrival

Under the flash of a neon ray

Leaving with the wrong signs

In your back pocket

The price tags and the labels

[...] Read more

poem by Yvette Smith
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