Famous Elevator Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Elevator poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous elevator poems. These examples illustrate what a famous elevator poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Nash, Ogden
...ft
As a knife in the sheath is slipped,
Stealthy and swift into the lift
As a vampire into a crypt.
Old Maxie, the elevator boy,
Was reading an ode by Shelley,
But he dropped the ode as it were a toad
When the gun jammed into his belly.
There came a whisper as soft as mud
In the bed of an old canal:
"Take me up to the suite of Pinball Pete,
The rat who betrayed my gal."
The lift doth rise with groans and sighs
Like a duchess for the waltz,
Then in middle shaft, ...Read more of this...
by
Kizer, Carolyn
...d him peanut butter from your jar and raised him
on Beowulf and Grendal.
Much later in New York we reunited;
in an elevator at Sak's a woman asked for
your autograph.
You glowed like a star, like Anouk Aimee
at forty, close enough.
Your pedantry found its place in the Women's Movement.
You rose fast, seen suddenly as the morning star;
wrote the ERA
found the right man at last, a sensitive artist;
flying too high
not to crash. When the cancer caught you
...Read more of this...
by
Hecht, Anthony
...o home again. I stood at the door to my
childhood, but it was closed to the public.
19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger
than mine.
20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...oked out at me in sleep
insect-like. Guess, who was the insect.
I'd asked him in my robe
& hospital gown in the elevator politely
why someone saw so many police around,
and without speaking he looked.
A meathead, and of course he was armed, to creep
across my nervous system some time ago wrecked.
I saw the point of Loeb
at last, to give oneself over to crime wholly,
baffle, torment, roar laughter, or without sound
attend while he is cooked
until with trembli...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...hat water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...too
many people there. There were too many trailers and camp-
ers parked in the halls. We couldn't get to the elevator be-
cause there was a family from New York parked there in a
ten-room trailer.
Three children came by drinking rub-a-dub and pulling
an old granny by her legs. Her legs were straight out and
stiff and her butt was banging on the carpet. Those kids were
pretty drunk and the old granny wasn't too sober either, shout-
ing something ...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...A hook of smoke, a woman’s nose in charcoal and … nothing.
The timberline turns in a cover of purple. A grain elevator humps a shoulder. One steel star whisks out a pointed fire. Moonlight comes on the stubble.
“Jesus in an Illinois barn early this morning, the baby Jesus … in flannels …”...Read more of this...
by
Bierce, Ambrose
...Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"
Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."
Then, for further compr...Read more of this...
by
Orlovsky, Peter
...ox so a dried up grapefruit.
Is there any one saintly thing I can do to my room, paint it pink
maybe or instal an elevator from the bed to the floor,
maybe take a bath on the bed?
Whats the use of liveing if I cant make paradise in my own
room-land?
For this drop of time upon my eyes
like the endurance of a red star on a cigerate
makes me feel life splits faster than sissors.
I know if I could shave myself the bugs around my face would
disappear forever.
Th...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...in the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care
for the building or speak its name or ask a policeman
the way to it?)
Elevators slide on their cables and tubes catch letters and
parcels and iron pipes carry gas and water in and
sewage out.
Wires climb with secrets, carry light and carry words,
and tell terrors and profits and loves--curses of men
grappling plans of business and questions of women
in plots of love.
Hour by hour the caissons reach down to the rock of...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...e boy a nickel, tore the envelope and read.
Then he yelled “Good God,” jumped for his hat and raincoat, ran for the elevator and took a taxi to a railroad depot.
As I say, it was like a set of crystals in a chemist’s tube and a whispering pinch of salt.
I wonder what Diogenes who lived in a tub in the sun would have commented on the affair.
I know a shoemaker who works in a cellar slamming half-soles onto shoes, and when I told him, he said: “I pay my bills, ...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...brain
and the only way you'll keep from going mad
is to be hit with a hammer every hour.
If a hunchback is in the elevator with you
don't turn away,
immediately touch his hump
for his child will be born from his back tomorrow
and if he promptly bites the baby's nails off
(so it won't become a thief)
that child will be holy
and you, simple bird that you are,
may go on flying.
When you knock on wood,
and you do,
you knock on the Cross
and Jesus gives you a fragment o...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me--who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to...Read more of this...
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