Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2017 | Page 110

The Phoenix of Old Shanghai
St. Margaret's Co-Educational English Secondary and Primary School
(Secondary Section), Fernandes, Andrik – 12
The Phoenix burning in the East,
To never die nor never sleep,
The dragon once coiled around it,
Now lies lifeless, dead, departed.
The wall stood steadfast destined to last
against invaders and assailants, now all of the past
The dragon slain, an assassination,
Bearing the brunt of commercialisation.
With opium, rebellions and foreign concessions,
The city was finally lost to the past,
Never to rise from its ashes, alas,
The Phoenix was now breathing its last.
The city will never be as it were,
Old Shanghai, the urban core,
The old stone bricks, aged with time,
The prophecies none but a lie.
The Phoenix burning in the east,
Never to die nor never to sleep,
War and death now take its toll,
The Phoenix now will burn no more.