Repost

Since the olympics begin this week...  let's take a look back in time.  I wrote this many years after the event.  Was struggling to come to terms, and it isn't great, but it was the best I could do.   You be the judge.  I hate that a lot of it is still relevant.  And damn starry eyed idealists who can't play dirty enough to make it work.

AND EVERYONE CRYING 'CHANGE!'



In the narrow corridor

Between Forum and Chapel

The atheletes are milling about.

It's an open Bazaar

Where the West meets the East.

(or is it perhaps

a miniature Big Apple??)

The reporters write for the evening news,

That here is a love feast

Where humanity is spoken

But to me it is Babel:

And behind their smiles

I see thirty-two tooth salutes of contempt..

They trade national tokens

When their training is over

And the August sun is on the wane.

And everyone's crying 'Change!



Some of their stick-pins are, of course

More in demand---

Depending on reknown and supply-

(For who wants a Poland

When one can acquire

A token of Russia---

or Japan, by and by?)

The Olympic ideal does not exclude

the desire for personal prestige and fame.

And so here the capitalist ethic reigns,

And everyone's crying 'Change!'



Most stay in their groups;

They're like gaggles of geese

And they casually size up their opponents.

The Belgians won't speak with the Germans,

And the French look down with noblesse oblige

On the rest of this city's components.

And the Indians are wary of the Pakistanis.

The Nigerians hate the Rhodesians....

Still, they are anxious to trade

So they swallow

Their pride and political allegiance.

The friendliest are from the smallest countries;

From barely visible dots on the atlas.

They compete with the best and have no face to lose.

And their names tie the tongue, are exceedingly strange...

And EVERYONE'S crying 'Change!'



And we watch them, amused....

We foreign 'guest workers'

Try not to compete, but try

To understand what we're all about,

To conquer the predjudices

Our leaders have taught us

And try to discover their lies.



(We find sinister reasons for political deeds.

Can most of them be really due

To something so mundane as greed?)

We grow national guilts for the actions of others,

Attempt to solve problems,

And the grounds our talks cover

Range from politics to jokes,

to religion and pollution.....

And we can only agree that our world is insane.

And everyone's crying 'Change'



CHANGE cry disillusioned Americans

as George Meany offers millions to dump George McGovern.



Change! cry the Irish

who are weary of blood-shed, still demand to be self-governed.



Change! cry Rhodesia's majority blacks,

while their whites promenade and acknowledge no guilt.



Change! cry the Greeks

who have lost their Democracy,

and blame the American military bloc.



Change! cry the people of the Middle East

While the world sits in judgement

To the ticking of a nuclear clock.



Change! cry the people trapped in the suburbs,

in anonymous houses, sleazily built.



Change! cry defenders of the Earth's environment,

while in factory accidents, their neighbors are killed.



Change! cry the starving and the world's minorities,

who live on hate, while others grow fat.



Change! cry the young, as they champ at the bit,

while the Establishment sees they're held back.



Change! cry the conservatives who want power and control,

and tremble at thought of a reverse in the order of things.



Change! cry the liberals who shout out for justice

So all have a chance to grasp the brass ring.

Yes!, they shout, Change!



On the day of departure

the action is frenzied,

and the shouting reaches fever pitch,

trading sneakers and track suits,

And their laughter and smiles

no longer seem stretched,

are real, and their owners fit.

Competition is over,

and now they are grinning,

no longer concerned

with who will be winning.

Koreans wear Russian warm-up pants;

Belgians wear French warm-up jackets.



We smile and fight down the urge to gloat,

For we long know what they're finding out,

Have the experience and memories to back it.



The September wind blows yesterday's news

Through the passage-way. Then it rains.

And the athletes take refuge in the Chapel's pews

To a dying last echo of 'Change'



Change! For the world is shrinking fast,

On yourself you can no longer rely.



Change! And drop tribal habits at last....

Or like the dinasaurs.... We WILL die...