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?