Hotel Room, 12th Floor - Norman MacCaig

Question 1

Start

Answer 1

This morning I watched from here
a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect
the Empire State Building, that
jumbo size dentist’s drill, and landing
on the roof of the PanAm skyscraper.

Question 2

PanAm skyscraper. …

Answer 2

But now midnight has come in
from foreign places.

Question 3

foreign places. …

Answer 3

Its uncivilised darkness
is shot at by a million lit windows, all
ups and acrosses.

Question 4

ups and acrosses. …

Answer 4

But midnight is not
so easily defeated.

Question 5

easily defeated. …

Answer 5

I lie in bed, between
a radio and a television set, and hear
the wildest of warwhoops continually ululating through
the glittering canyons and gulches—

Question 6

glittering canyons and gulches- …

Answer 6

police cars and ambulances racing
to the broken bones, the harsh screaming
from coldwater flats, the blood
glazed on sidewalks.

Question 7

blood glazed on sidewalks. …

Answer 7

The frontier is never
somewhere else. And no stockades
can keep the midnight out.