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A Worker Reads History

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.

poem by Bertolt Brecht
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Questions From a Worker Who Reads

Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.

The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?

Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who
Else won it?

Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man?
Who paid the bill?

So many reports.
So many questions.

poem by Bertolt Brecht
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We Built This City

Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Say you dont know me or recognize my face
Say you dont care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Someone always playing corporation games
Who cares theyre always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible write us off the page
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Its just another sunday, in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, oh then we just lost the beat
Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball in two rock guitars
Dont tell us you need us, cos were the ship of fools
Looking for america, coming through your schools
(Im looking out over that golden gate bridge
Out on another gorgeous sunny saturday, not seein that bumper to bumper traffic)
Dont you remember (member)(member)
(whats your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
(we built, we built this city) built this city (we built, we built this city)
(repeats out)

song performed by by Starship
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We Built This City

CHORUS
We built this city we built this city on rock an' roll
Built this city we built this city on rock an' roll
Say you don't know me or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night
BRIDGE
Marconi plays the mamba listen to the radio
Don't you remember
We built this city we built this city on rock an' roll
REPEAT CHORUS
Someone's always playing corporation games
Who cares they're always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible write us off the page
REPEAT BRIDGE
REPEAT CHORUS
It's just another Sunday in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold oh and we just lost the beat
Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars
Don't tell us you need us 'cos we're just simple fools
Looking for America crawling through your schools
(I'm looking out over that Golden Gate bridge
Out on a gorgeous sunny Saturday I've seen that bumper-to-bumper traffic)
Don't you remember (remember)
(Here's your favorite radio station in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay the city that rocks the city that never sleeps)
REPEAT BRIDGE
REPEAT CHORUS TWICE
(We built we built this city) built this city (we built we built this city)
REPEAT TO FADE

song performed by by Jefferson Starship
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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They Came From Distant Places

They came from distant places to this far southern shore
The men who built the city at rest forever more
Some of them could not speak the language but they were strong and young
And they were willing workers and their praises ought be sung
The men who built the city their grandchildren old today
They worked hard to support their wives and families from their old homeland far away
They built the factories, homes and railways and they worked hard for their pay
The men who built the city for years with Nature lay
No monument built to them no last post for them played
For the men who built the city there was never a parade
Only their direct descendants would have heard of them by name
To be honest and hard working is never a claim to fame
The men who built the city their praises remain unsung
And today their grandchildren are not what one would call young.

poem by Francis Duggan
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Stone by Stone

I built this wall around my heart
and stone by stone it falls apart
I built this wall to keep you out
the pain, the loss, and all the doubt
I built this wall around my heart
and stone by stone it falls apart
brick by brick it is destroyed
tear by tear i realize
but, I built this wall to keep you out
and stone by stone it fell apart
all the pain, the loss, the doubt
goodbye to that wall around my heart
for stone by stone it fell apart.

poem by Kenzie Lynn
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Mr. Mine

Notice how he has numbered the blue veins
in my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles.
Now he goes left. Now he goes right.
He is building a city, a city of flesh.
He's an industrialist. He has starved in cellars
and, ladies and gentlemen, he's been broken by iron,
by the blood, by the metal, by the triumphant
iron of his mother's death. But he begins again.
Now he constructs me. He is consumed by the city.
>From the glory of words he has built me up.
>From the wonder of concrete he has molded me.
He has given me six hundred street signs.
The time I was dancing he built a museum.
He built ten blocks when I moved on the bed.
He constructed an overpass when I left.
I gave him flowers and he built an airport.
For traffic lights he handed at red and green
lollipops. Yet in my heart I am go children slow.

poem by Anne Sexton
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where are your powers Babylon?

Illustrious Babylon
where are your powers now?
city of fame
city of gold and silver
city of a famous name
where are your powers now?
city of wonders
empire of sin
Babylon
city of ruins

mighty Babylon
city of prowess
empire of old
empire of supremacy
rich with stolen gold
where are you now?
city of the hanging gardens
city holding the righteous captive
where are your powers Babylon?
city of desolate wastes

ferocious Babylon
look out over the valley
Cyrus the great of Persia
with his army of men
and Darius the Mede
with his army of men
diverting the great river Euphrates
and sneaking under your walls
your 'impenetrible walls
Babylon
city of ruins

Where are your powers
King Nebuchadnezzar?
your colossal gate is open
your subjects are drunk
drunk with wine and blood
unaware of approaching destruction
living their normal course of life
where are you now Babylon?
heaped in ruin and desolation
...forever
now just a dry desert plain
and the wind goes...hush...

poem by Allen Steble
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Today... 'The Finisher of Faith

Ascending into heaven to triumphant applause
the battle was over and the victory was Yours.
Death had now been vanquished and the grave was opened wide
'It is Finished' was the great shout of triumph You cried.

The work is behind You the price for sin had been paid
the sepulchre was empty where Your body once laid.
You had endured the cross and despised its dreadful shame.
The heavens rejoice and Your great victory proclaim.

And there seated at the right hand of God I can see
my Lord Jesus Christ Who has Finished the faith for me.
For my great Author and the Finisher of the faith
won the victory over Satan and now I'm safe.

Despising the shame and enduring Calvary's cross
You came to seek and to save this poor sheep that was lost.
It is finished I hear that great victorious cry
Resounding throughout heaven as the years pass on by

(see also the additional information in the Poet's notes box below)

poem by Roy Allen
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Cockatoo Twelve Years On '1995

It's been more than twelve years so they tell me since the flames of death passed through
Since the fire that caused destruction burnt it's way through Cockatoo
Lives were lost and houses burnt down blackened miles of countryside
And people wept for lost possessions for their life time work destroyed.

Tears for houses burnt to ashes, tears for lives lost in fierce flame
Tears for trees and paddocks blackened some say 'fire bug '
was to blame
Cockatoo a place of mourning only blackness to be seen
Only smell of smoke and burn out not one sign of Nature's green.

Twelve years on things seem so different Cockatoo looks green today
And who'd believe if you had not known that huge fire had burnt this way
Some still talk of their great losses and the hardships they'd been through
But they recovered built new houses and still live in Cockatoo.

Nature is her own best healer, Nature the true friend of man
Blackness caused by fire and burn out only last for a brief span
Cockatoo is one example what a change twelve years can bring
On green gum tree by the rail track i can hear the shrike thrush sing.

Here in cockatoo this morning fresh and pure the mountain air
Green the trees and green the paddocks green as i've seen anywhere
Twelve years back a blackened wasteland see how green she looks today
Nature is her own best healer and nature always has her way.

poem by Francis Duggan
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Such is Life in Every Aspect

It will be built,
And they will built it;
It will be destroyed,
And they will destroy it;
But such is life in every aspects of it,
For there is time for everything on this earth! !

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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We Shouldn't Have

We shouldn’t have built this place
We shouldn’t have welcomed the lights
Of the city
But instead we built this place
Instead we welcomed the lights
Of the city, the city

We shouldn’t have built this place
We shouldn’t have figured that time
Was eternity
But instead we built this place
Instead we figured that time
Was eternity, eternity

We shouldn’t have built this place
We should have listened to our neighbors
When they told us to stop
But instead we built this place
We didn’t listen to them
When they told us to stop

We shouldn’t have built this place
We should have understood that the world
Was a luxury
But instead we built this place
We just couldn’t understand that the world
Was a luxury

poem by Mye3
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The Builders Of The City

You never will find their names on a memorial wall
And any memories of them historians never do recall
The builders of the City who lay with the unsung
Many of them came from distant shores and spoke in a foreign tongue
They more than earned every penny that they were ever paid
The builders of the City yet little of their achievements made
Devoted to the family and devoted to the wife
They worked hard so their children could enjoy a better life,
The builders of the City so much to them we owe
Though nothing written about them and of them little we do know
They built the housing estates, City buildings and City Mall
Though nothing of their life achievements is ever made at all
They lay the rail tracks to the City and made the Roadways through the Countryside
Yet in the builders of the City we never do take pride.

poem by Francis Duggan
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Tropical City

Speak to me of youth, and breezes warmed by the sun
The breezes that falter down cool alleys
In the city built in the sun

Speak to me of flower vendors, and the beggar boys that run
The old ones who stagger through dusty roads
Of a city built in the sun

And I'll tell you of a hundred days when I wished all was well
Of the hours passed in fantasies
When my mind on thoughts would dwell

On greatest trains and rains and sounds of cricket games being won
of lotuses flames and evenings
In the city built in the sun

poem by Vera Sidhwa
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The Twin Towers

September 11,2001

The Twin Towers©

I was built of steel, I was built of stone,
I was built by men of flesh and bone.

They built me strong they built me tall,
A symbol of strength for one and all.

And from my ramparts you could see,
The city of modernity.

Thousands came and gazed in awe,
All marveled at what they saw.

Commerce was my bailiwick,
I helped the world when it was sick.

My congregations came from afar,
They made their fortunes and were my star.

All races, creeds, and religions were,
Under my roof all equal without a slur.

But things are not always as simple as they seem,
For sometimes men, can be obscene.

Then one fine day when the sun shone strong,
Something came that did not belong.

Some men of flesh and blood and bone,
Sent planes with fuel and speed alone.

They hit me once, they hit me twice,
Fires burned and I was filled with strife.

I tried to stand I tried to mend,
But it all was futile in the end.

I once was strong I once was tall,
Till one day I became nothing at all.

poem by Everett Lautin
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City Of Beggars

The sky is always blue in the city of beggars
There is not much green in the city of beggars
There are buildings being built so fast in the city of beggars
In every corner that you encounter
The city of beggars are growing so fast
And in the city of beggars lives 30 million people
The air is not that good in the city of beggars
Because of the factories and the cars
The city of beggars never sleep
The noise goes on 24 hours a day
It is not safe to walk in the street of beggars
Because you can get robbed and killed at any time of the night or day
The traffic is chaotic in the city of beggars
Thanks God there is no snow in the city of beggars

poem by Aldo Kraas
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Lamentable

Lamentable

Behind my cottage there was an olive grove
someone came knocked down the trees for
a better view, but it wasn’t true they built
four thousand dwellings instead and called
it a security zone. And then they built a wall
so I can’t see my lost olive grove.

The world agree with me this is all wrong,
but tells me I, for the sake of peace, must
understand and give way. I have understood
for sixty years and given way so many times,
and I know now I made a mistake to let their
cattle graze on our common land

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Built To Last

There are times when you must beckon,
There are times when you must fall.
You can take a lot of wrecking,
But you cant take it all.
There are times when I can help you out,
And times when you must fall.
There are times when you must live in doubt,
And I cant help at all.
Two blue stars, shine oer the hill.
Plead no more, now just be still.
Through the night, now safely there.
Show me something built to last.
Been held by the fire,
Yes and im, held by the ring.
You can walk on balls of fire,
But sometimes you might bleed.
There are times when I have begged you
And you do the same to me.
If you cant or wont admit it,
At least we pulled you through.
Three blue stars, set oer the hill.
Call them back; you never will.
All these trials, soon be dead.
We all need something built to last.
Built to last till time of seven,
Falls tumbling from the sky.
Built to last till lightness fades,
And darkness falls on all.
Built to last till years roll back
Our couch perched in the sky
Show me something different,
Or something built to try.
There are times when you get hit up on,
Try hard but you cannot give.
Other times, youd gladly go
With what you need to give.
Dont be afraid to save your face,
When you have done your best
Now I wont forget,
Next day try the rest.
All the stars, are gone but one.
Morning dreams, we found the sun.
Show me something built to last
Two blue stones, shine oer the hill.
Call it back; you never will
All these trials, now are dead.
Show me something built to last.
All the stars, are gone but one.
Morning dreams. here comes the sun.
Through the night, now sinking fast.
Show me something built to last.

song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Only the Slaves

How to regard a manner as decent
Is only a requirement of manliness.
It despises the master to see the slave perish,
And the men have reawakened.
Manners of a slave are laudable when man
Is sufficient as a master, and love is a learning all common.
To live a wreck and survive a storm is a slavery
Of every man. Regard a manner in this city as sacred.

The key to the city lies in the minds of men who are leaders.
The painting of a king is adequate for the retelling.
It is a city in the air, and I call it Red and Yellow.
Kings and queens are averse to these intricacies.
We are masters, and they are slaves of the House.
A Palace is built in heaven if you are good.
Only the slaves are the masters in Heaven.

poem by Naveed Akram
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From Greece To Rome

we took the Greek ideal of democracy,
and built it on bloodied shores.
wearing the mask of white righteousness,
we destroyed all in our path,
and claimed the land for god and freedom.
we fueled it with African slaves,
bodies sold on the block.
we built the land of equality,
as long as you were male and white,
had money, or owned 'stolen' land!
finally, women took the right to vote,
but we urged them (god's will) ,
to stay home and bear children.
black people were emancipated
to 'colored only' restrooms,
and a seat at the back of the bus!

/to be continued/

poem by Eric Cockrell
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I read a statement in a newspaper

I read a statement in a newspaper
That Twentyman, the manufacturer,
Found it was cheaper to deliver goods
By horse and lorry than by motor-truck
Or motor-van. So he had sold his trucks
To purchase horses. He dismissed those men
Who had mechanics' minds to re-employ
Drivers of horses, friends of animals.
Then life grew stronger in me because life
Had triumphed in this case and would perhaps
Finally triumph over the machine.
Even such mean commercial victory
Being better than no victory at all.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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