Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2017 | Page 49

"New Year's Eve was quite a ball,
With dancing in the music hall.
The twinkling lights and frozen streets,
Grand Bund facades and Christmas treats.
Crowds would gather by the river piers,
And the little boys forgot their tears."
"On late Spring days Yu Gardens bloomed,
The city filled and business boomed.
You'd walk among the ancient stones,
Where the spirit of the past still roams.
Past quiet pavilions and tranquil ponds,
Under flowering branches like magic wands."
"The city of music, of beautiful tunes,
Where a Russian princess ate sweet macaroons,
A girl from Beijing inspired pretty verse,
A French ballerina, an English nurse.
A city of colour, of flickering light,
Seen through a doorway even at midnight."
"The bankers, the dancers, the poets and stars,
Who travelled the city in polished black cars.
The boats on the river, docking at dawn,
The villas that floated in perfect green lawns.
Street names have changed and buildings grown taller,
History has shrunk, old quarters grown smaller."
"But the old is still there if you know how to look,
Stories not found in any guidebook.
Look through the smog at the sky you can't see,
Imagine Old Shanghai as it used to be:
A place of excitement, with the bustle of trade,
Where dreams could be lost, but fortunes remade."
"Listen for the sound of the city that has gone,
But left traces of its magical song.
The taste of the past from Shanghai kitchens,
The spicy smells of foreign fictions.
The touch of silk in a market stall,
Gold and jade, like a pirate's haul."