Beware of the Dragon.

Beware the Dragon.

Beware the sleeping dragon when it wakes

and heed its fearsome roar;

this mighty beast, once shaken from its slumber,

the world dare not ignore.

No bent-backed peasants' labours in the paddy-fields,

nor buffalo-drawn plough,

can fill the belly of the ravenous monster,

to sate its hunger now.

Dammed and drowned, the mighty Yangtze gorges

must slake its thirst for power;

and where once lowly dwellings served its people,

vast skyscrapers now tower.

Forests of giant cranes reach ever higher,

working night and day;

and tidal waves of concrete flood the landscape,

sweeping the old away.

Cities peopled by those displaced millions

mushroom overnight,

while helter-skelter highways spiral round them

at a dizzy height.

As lungs inhale the noxious pall of greyness,

smogs which choke and cling,

in teeming streets where bicycles and rickshaws

still throng, the car is king.

This unrelenting march towards the modern world,

no human hand can stay;

and as the faltering West looks on despairingly,

the East will have its day.

© Nicky Wheeliker 2013 Photo © Dave Hibberd

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