Underbelly (Ho Chi Minh City)
-
Poppy Whale, Grade 8, St. Catherine's School
-
Poetry
-
2015
2nd in the 'Beyond Words 2015' competition
Tall buildings stand silently like stacked cardboard boxes
Looking down with tired eyes on the city below,
Falling apart, tearing, fraying, splitting.
One side of each box covered in a once-bright colour,
A last glimpse of hope being grasped.
Flickering lights and dead street lamps line damp alleyways
Illuminating swirls of musty, smoky air.
Cement glaciers with endless crevices and cracks
Containing decades of grime and soot.
Rotting tree trunks and tyres, the only support for metal roofs,
Dripping in layer after layer of rust.
A place where silence is the only music one hears.
Hovering clouds like a grey curtain close over a city of despair,
Merging the ground into one vast shadow.