Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2017 | Page 10

Shanghai Remembered
St. Paul's Co-educational College Primary School, Yee, Brent - 6
I turned a corner and saw a time machine,
It was flashing lights, red blue and green.
I stepped inside there was a scanner screen
And a panel of controls I had never seen.
I decided where I wanted to go,
It was exactly ninety-five years ago.
I pressed a button the time machine spun,
To the year nineteen twenty-one.
I went back in time to Lao Shanghai,
Before I could wave my friends good-bye
I climbed a wall, 10 meters high
And 31 miles long, to protect Shanghai.
I saw the city being an ancient place,
Where people in strange clothes were in a race,
To find a place and make a home,
A village in China to call their own.
I saw City God Temple in the middle of town
And the Yuyan Gardens I walked around.
I followed the Bund to Tianzifang,
Where traditional people sang and danced.
I crossed the bridge over Creek Suzhou,
Which was made of wood, bits of metal too.
A drawbridge opened in the middle,
A ship sailed through, I heard it signal.
I saw a statue at the River Bund,
It was built at the end of World War One.
The monument was called the ‘Goddess of Peace’
A symbol to say all fighting would cease.
I headed back to the time machine,
Saw its lights flashing blue and green.
I opened the door and stepped inside
And flicked a switch then began to ride.
All the way home to my own time,
A wonderful adventure had been mine.
I would tell all that I’d seen
To all my friends of two thousand and sixteen