Best Escalators Poems
Another repetitious dream – 3
The outsider look in, from within / looking at
Dreams come alive during the morning hours,
long after most of the world – on this side of the sun –
has risen from the fading light of moons glow and dreams.
My dreams ride the steps of escalators from deep down,
where – from the darkened cracks of the subconscious –
voices speak – in riddles and rhymes – to the conscious
mind, during those sleepy hours where depression takes hold
and binds, ties one down - in the light of day - to their bed.
My dreams are telling me - as I see myself – I am involved
in what is portrayed upon the screens that lay on the backside
of my, closed, eye lids that hide from the outside world
a true view of my soul and all that is whispered in secret.
Phrases depicting – as I, in states of lucidity – watch the play
unfold – from my balcony chair – as I become the actor,
and in this, a one man play, I am all the parts of all the characters
that have danced, strutted, pranced, crawled before these eyes.
Eyes that catch the essence of the story but not the subplots,
nor the beginning, the middle, the end, or what lies between
the lines set within the heart of all the prose, poetry and rhymes.
And so, as the outsider looking in, looking at the insider
looking out, comes from within, is the script writer, the actor,
preforming all the parts, with all the nuances projected,
that awake, never comes to light, except in small flakes,
specks and flecks upon the mirror he hold, reflecting
the images of the child, the boy, the youth, the man, the aged.
The strange world of dreams !!!
B. J. “A ” 2
June 19th 2005
Mall, Boutique, Department store treasures to my commercial heart do speak
Must frequent all to earn preferred status and join the frivolous clique
Glitzy curtains, fragrant candles, gaudy clothes through glamorous show windows peak
Sales, promotions, every-day values entreat any time during the week
Checks, petty cash start the extravaganza; plastic cards extend the streak
Nick knacks, valuables, and everything in between must seek
To grand openings, holiday giveaways, early previews, away I sneak
Revelling through posh galleries, gilded show rooms in the presence of chic manequins so sleek
Reconnoitering new fashions, suave styles, designer wears so sheek
Through crowded aisles, up squeaky escalators, into narrow corridors not for the meek
With such dedication, resolve, and passion you dare call me weak
My cabinets are stuffed, my closets are packed, my halls are cluttered; but I'm no freak
This is not the golden age.
It is the future reeling from
earthquake, hurricanes,
lost innocence, lost generations:
Who will cry?
Their voices are muted
beneath the blare of the trumpet sounders
who cry for justice: human rights,
the environment, save this, save that,
save the world.
They do not see
In the modern world,
after the dark-age, beyond skyscrapers,
escalators and aeroplanes, without concord.
They do not see the muting things
nor hear the muted voices.
In the modern world,
they
do not feel.
The city doesn’t need any elevators
Or escalators or anything to push people up
There are no clouds in this brightened city
no bourgeoisie emancipation, no atypical beauty
silicon bosoms out on the overstretched skies
mechanical tirades of the undiluted selves
the cubicles at Grande elevators are full of
lowered shallow spaces of begotten lies
should the company now start manufacturing soaps?
or narcissistic pleasures of the condescending physical realm
and illegal sex tapes with real orgasms?
But would any of these have any upsurge
On the emotionless lonely workers
who have thrown people up all this while
keeping a low profile in this profane job
the crowded elevators do not inspire any orgy
or clichéd electricity failure induced seductions
there are just too many of them (not the orgies!!)
the office of Grande, meaning big and great and great as desolate
is densely illuminated with the low intensity money saver bulbs
waiting to die their organic death as they are un-switchable
the products, by the way, are now “auto maintained”
the elevator which doesn't work well
changes itself
the one which is an escapist shoots itself up,
beyond the last floor, turning into precarious ash
the loneliness in the office, which is on the ground floor
is only equal to a fugitive bird
without a pinch of shelter in this extended, tall,
gyrating and syrupy city
Inside, deep inside, at your window
Near the dim light and mystic shadow
Twinkle your moistened graceful eyes
Rustling leaves of moonlit memories
Opening the gates of many a garden
Sonnets of sobs and smiles of soul
Prayers fulfilled and prayers frustrated
Escalators toward hints from paradise
Calm cool cucumber slice on my eyes
Tranquil flames fostering faith and felicity
Inside I look and say what a universe
On the blurring border of light and dark
Nitroglycerin moments in a quiet refuge
_____________________________________________________
June 24, 2016
For the contest: Introspection – Acrostic
Sponsored by: John Hamilton
7/10/17
I'm going to still be a trailblazer
Going beyond all the acres
And glaciers
Above and below any crater
Similarities and differences on both sides of the equator
Events turning out minor and major
Waters with and without crocodiles or alligators
It was done realistically or through a simulator
Stairs, near and far from escalators
As well as elevators
People remaining loyal or becoming a traitor
Whether or not it had anything to do with paper
Objects beginning to wear and taper
Homes on and off the grid with or without generators
Please don't speak to me about any savior
The creator
Or so called 'maker'
And what you consider greater
Doing a lot of labor
And favors
I've been trying to help my loved ones, friends, and neighbors
While inside or out in nature
So much wiser and braver
I'm feeling like a gladiator
I've got to finish it now instead of later
Even if I put myself in danger
I'm not going to back down to any hater
Or instigator
Put you into place, with my foot on the accelerator
Close and beyond any chambers
Been feeling stranger
I'm not the best painter
For a long time I've been a gamer
Sometimes feeling like a failure
Near and far from strainers
And shipping containers
I'm not going to reach for any razor
Or stab anyone in the back with a sabre
SPRING AT PIONERSKAYA
Frozen in the hum of the escalators’
Descent to the roaring metro,
Across the unwashed glass
Of government windows,
The equinoctal sun pins
My shadow tight
Up against the lengthening day,
And the spring smiles in the crowd
Are as scarce as icebergs in hell.
..............................................................
Note
For all you astronomy nerds, just a reminder that today is the Vernal Equinox.
Pionerskaya is of course a Metro station near my home.
This is not the golden age.
It is the future reeling from
earthquake, hurricanes,
lost innocence, lost generations:
Who will cry?
Their voices are muted
beneath the blare of the trumpet sounders
who cry for justice: human rights,
the environment, save this, save that,
save the world.
They do not see
In the modern world,
after the dark-age, beyond skyscrapers,
escalators and aeroplanes, without concord.
They do not see the muting things
nor hear the muted voices.
In the modern world,
they
do not feel.
I walk into an old brick building on a campus.
It seems so familiar. . . as if I should know it,
and yet my memory is blurred.
Climbing steps, I’m sure of where I need to go.
I glimpse a door on an upper floor.
Opening it, I look inside. It’s not the room I believed I sought.
A feeling of foreboding now crawls over me.
Somehow I know. . . that somewhere in this building
some students wait for me.
Panic grips me as I think of the minutes I am losing.
That room. . . That room. . . Where is it?
I move down corridors, up stairs, down stairs,
Opening door after door after door after door
to rooms from which strangers’ faces stare blankly back at mine.
Now I’m racing down many flights of stairs, then up,
running to opposite sides of the building and back,
Steps turn into escalators! How strange. . . .Old blends into new.
The building, once so common, has now become gigantic.
I’m swallowed up by it, by its limitless labyrinth hallways
leading me to nothing. I must get back to where I started from!
Running, running. . . I awaken with a jolt!
Having drifted back to sleep, I find myself this time
on a bustling and modern city street.
It seems so familiar. . . . as if I should know it.
Those rising skyscrapers. A place I once lived or maybe visited?
Starting to walk, I seem to know (how do I know?). .
that a narrow street of tiny shops and outdoor vendors
waits around the corner, a cobbled street where new turns into old.
Again. . . That same hideous foreboding begins to creep upon me. . .
And as I turn around, the street I’d walked along looks not the same.
Should I try to backtrack? Something tells me. . . .
I have tried and failed at that before. . . in other dreams.
Panic is resurfacing again, for I just know. . .
I’m never going to find my way
back to where I started.
I've been noticing people without passion; a lost sense of pride, no dignity, no doubt. A plague of the mind which I cannot explain in short time; I suppose we can blame technology or the processed food. I might as well jump on the band wagon and blame Wal-Mart and McDonalds. People standing still on escalators and moving walkways, sitting on planes, driving our cars onto boats, waiting in line to buy popcorn at the movie theaters and sitting on couches are lifeless people full of dreams and criticism. (While I lay on my back writing poems) Placing blame on the man and pointing out others faults. Preying on their weakness and sucking the life out of them. They are us, you and I and him and her. We are the few, the proud, the American dream. And that's exactly what we've been doing... Dreaming; not living or doing or showing others that it's okay to be silly, or vulnerable, or laugh, or clap at the movies for that matter; clueless mindless humans with the ever so present resemblance to dead bodies, floating down lazy river. Laughs at the weak instead of laughing for weeks; in desperate need of revival; thirty compressions and two rescue breaths; survival means living and living means letting go so come on people; let's go! Life is full of love so love life. Live on, let it go, get off your high horse and say something's silly. Put your guard down for just a moment and open yourself up to the possibilities. Take the stairs. Smile at a stranger. Take a chance. Make a new friend. Lose your inhibitions and believe. Yes believe! (That) You are the most important piece to the puzzle. We all count and can make a difference. Stay positive and infect the world with kindness. Ultimately it is your choice; to live a full life or to live a life less full, floating down lazy river like a bunch of dead bodies.
2014
Two hundred and twenty stories never written but etched in time
were removed on a day which started fine.
The silver worms traveled down beneath the floors
carrying those whose day (lest they know) would be a chore,
through the escalators and out the doors passing the facades lined with stores.
Aristocrats and bourgeois run through the halls
for no one would ever believe that these stories could fall.
I myself went to the nineteenth floor of Cortlandt and Church
starting my day seeing on which call I would make first.
“My future is looking great”, flashed briefly through my mind,
little did I know that fate was not mine.
A large boom made the buildings shake and the windows had rippled
as I ran to the pane and suddenly was crippled.
I gazed up eighty some ought floors
to see an explosion rocking the world off its doors.
I exclaimed, “My God, their bombing us” at the top of my lungs
and ran down 19 floors...like I was 19 years young.
Standing in the corridor on Dey that day, my eyes witnessed things I’d rather not say.
The second explosion than flashed before my eyes,
and I ran near a bridge to try and survive.
I stood there and wondered and waited what to do next
until one of the stories decided where I should run to avoid the effects.
Half the stories came down like an angry freight train
releasing a smoke monster engulfing all with a white powdered grain.
Covering my mouth, coughing like crazy, crossing the bridge, all sites were hazy.
Standing on the other side of the east I looked to the west
to see the other half of the stories end my friends, to this I attest.
Hundreds and thousands and millions of lives
were all torn apart over this year plus nine.
So I sit here now telling you all first hand
a day in the life of a fairly young man
whose story had began and ended that day
may your hearts stay free and strong
and God Bless the USA.
We took our grandson for the day
To visit in the city.
Compared to where he lives, it must seem
Noisy, fast and gritty.
He marveled at the bridges,
The tall buildings and the river,
But there was one department
Where I knew that we’d deliver -
For elevators currently
Rank high up on his list
Of things that seem to thrill him.
(Escalators coexist.)
He proudly pushed the buttons,
Counted floors as they zipped by
And in Daddy’s office building
There were 8 that he could try!
A Barnes & Noble stop was great
Not only for a book
But for the escalators
(Up and down) that we all took.
Suburban kids are used to
Lots of room in which to play
But a nana with an elevator
Garners some cachet.
The Spirit of God is in the wind that glides across the land-
stirring the tall Blue Stem into billowing waves of grass,
that roll toward snow-topped mountains-
defining the distant horizon-
mountains appearing nearly as purple as those
grape flavored ices cast on wooden sticks-
that most children find so appealing.
Majestic birds of prey glide effortless overhead,
riding invisible currents of air-
like escalators in the sky-
adding their plaintive calls to that of the incessant wind.
Below, furry creatures scurry for cover-
reminiscent of soldiers on fields of strife-
desperately fearing overhead activity and sounds.
Wild prairie flowers of all colors and variety
bloom profusely, diffused throughout a tapestry of green-
like colored glass ornaments on a Christmas tree.
Virgin land never touched by plow or defiled with post and wire.
So grand, the Tall Grass Prairie-
once so vast, now nearly forever gone -
replaced with corn, beans, and wheat.
Tis true that a prosperous people must eat-
but can’t what little is left be preserved for posterity,
as a constant reminder that even prosperity has a price?
Is it not pleasurable to endorse an escalation of elephants using escalators in the tree lined shopping centre? Is it not welcomed the sight of strong strength upon steel rotations? Variable tusk equals variations of moves and downhill the trumpets often sound somewhat obscured. But obscured is not obsolete and obsolete is neither an octagon eating-house or a occurrence of origami playing with the wrappers from the over filled bin. And so the elephants go up and down. Escalating elephants. The leader of this tribe finds the door to power this machine. And adjusts the setting to quick. Then at speed with bags bought and fodder awaiting. Whoosh up and whoosh down. With trunks packed and held tightly to preserve produce bought. In every silver steel there lives a silvery eyed mouse. Whose eeking can be heard across shipping lanes, lakes, shops, towns and cities. Even the darkest angel eagle can say that he or she has heard this cry of rodent. Like eeeeeeekkkk eeeeeeekkkkk repetitive reaching racing ranting remembering really radioactive radical ratios. Ratios are non productive well ironed suits. And bustling around in jams never really was equivalent to swimming nine lengths of tea using a back stroke. Thought the swim suited cockroaches. And that it was said was said and read by the fourteen wisdomatic tree lines, the curvaceously created crescent bushes, the shores of the pies, and the talking table of great magical power. Behold no crystalized pork and mildew bap to a ceiling infested with the breaths of nine ants. And off all went in a balloon. The little cups bursting, the bustling bumpy bouncing buoyant bullfrogs, the bills, the great tall seventeenth century oak tree. Look how far they soar above the trees. Wow. Amazing isn't it? Shall we go eat the biscuit now? Yes. Good. Z Allegiances Z at thirty nine giggling milk bottles jostling and preforming ballet by a door to twelve cartwheeling lambs and carthorses' at a farm event in the meadowland. Xxxx z pinnacle reaches in dark spotted tie. Z
Form:
Because real estate on the Boardwalk was in great demand,
the company had to build on a small section of land.
The casino was fashioned in European multi-level style.
Management believed it had a winner all the while.
The waitresses wore the familiar bunny ears and cotton tails.
The ship was on the sea with the wind billowing the sails.
However, in no time, the ship would run aground.
The public didn’t like escalators and tight places management found.
The competition within the city proved too strong.
What appeared to be all the right moves changed into wrong.
Unsuccessful business operations is what the management got.
Today, the site of the hotel is just a vacant lot.