You enter through a nondescript portal
On the blank sidestreet
Only to be confronted by the big brass placard
Or plastic disguised as brass
Inscribed with barely legible slogans

Terrible sayings supposed to motivate and inspire
Appealing to the sense of inferiority
The sense of victimhood
Don’t wait
Take action now
Don’t let them get away with it
Or words to that effect

And the piped-in music
Too generously I call it music
More a redolent drizzle
Freezes you in the spot
The hard mineral container
And call it cause or effect
But one way or another
You are transported back to that
Humiliating event at the college

Surely the atmospheric devices
Cannot control your mind
And surely no force in the universe
Automatically provides
What you’re ready for

And is this what you’re ready for
Resentment
Hate the world hate yourself
Hate the well-indexed catalog