Skyscraper

by Rachel Field

Do skyscrapers ever grow tired Of holding themselves up high? Do they ever shiver on frosty nights With their tops against the sky?

Do they feel lonely sometimes

Because they have grown so tall?

Do they ever wish they could lie right down

And never get up at all?

Diagrams

by Thom Gunn

Downtown, an office tower is going up.

And from the mesa of unfinished top

Big cranes jut, spectral points of stiffened net:

Angled top-heavy artefacts, and yet

Diagrams from the sky, as if its air

Could drop lines, snip them off, and leave them there.

On girders round them, Indians pad like cats,

With wrenches in their pockets and hard hats.

They wear their yellow boots like moccasins,

Balanced where air ends and where steel begins,

Sky men, and through the sole's flesh, chewed and pliant,

They feel the studded bone-edge of the giant.

It grunts and sways through its whole metal length.

And giving to the air is sign of strength.

Skyscraper

by Paul Sutton

Shaft of steel and stone standing forbidding

Dark and dead pointing to a brilliant moon

Black and brooding so bleak and unbending

Peak of the island, a gigantic tomb.

That tip of the shaft, a column of fire

A flame between earth and the moons cold light

Below cement swaths the island entire

The catacombs of man in dead of night.

The rock sea swells, avenue and canyon

And wave crests of agitated neon,

Flesh-filled capsules crawl and beetles surge on

Remote from this pinnacle of cold stone.

What are you? Sign of that which will have gone

Or blade of shining steel, symbol of dawn?

Skyscraper

by Jerome Dehnert

A driver pounds a pile of steel down Until the alloy strikes a rock below. No farther does the steal alloy go, Since bedrock checks the progress of Motown. A Lattice-work of steel embraces dawn, While heavy cables, winches, and men work To lift up slabs of cement like clockwork, As metal, stone, and glass give way to brawn. Amid the blood and sweat and cheers goes up A building raised by those who understand That from the ravages of time and sand, A race that takes a part builds up and up. God bless America and keep her safe, The skies above her free from sin vouchsafe.

Reading task e

1. Go over the vocabulary list. Consult a dictionary if you need.

Developer(s) joint venture step down

Walk-up(s) affiliate u-shaped pattern

Predecessor partner townhouses

Crowd-pleaser neighborhood of impact ring

Large-scale events plaza tenement

Range outdoor sculpture pedestrian

Demolish skirt(v) spandrels

Block drive set back(v)

Access drop off point shaft