Gilded Mountain
by Odin odin@aflx.com — Read all 3,869 poems by Odin odin@aflx.com
After reading the link below, it remains difficult to believe the lengths to which some men will obviate equality and humaneness in their hubristic quest. (photo by New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/sports/olympics/sochi-got-the-gold-bypassed-village-got-dust.html?hp
Monday, February 10, 2014
Gilded Mountain
by Odin Roark
How bright the shine
Those landmarks of sports-glitter
Bulldozed conversions of Nature’s rock to the sea
Affording luminous rail and highway
Back to a summit where hubris adornment
Becomes a ruler’s moment in history
In its wake
Villages sacrificed
Mobility confined
Modern slavery made stealth
Old men and women
Stand idle and bewildered
Dust at their feet
Beneficial snow distant
Weed-choked property
Stands emblematic
Simple living of humble lineage
Reduced to imposed exile
Little passage
Holds captive
Crouching men on dirt porches
Hopeless women peering
From glassless windows
All for the glory of five intertwined circles
What cost justifies the price?
What manner of inhumanity to man
Must we continue to endure?
Strange befits this experience
Where a world looks for what matters
Atop the icy lies buried beneath
Today
Putin’s gilded mountain
Tomorrow
Another czarist vestige
What with Russia's population declining, Mr. Putin would do well to heed what Mr. Ivanovich said about, "attention to families with many children."
Ron
From glassless windows /All for the glory of five intertwined circles" Your observances, in the way you write them, stick in the teeth just right, Odin.
~~ Diana
A news commentator was excited about the express train to see
the outer skirts of Sochi. Well I was all set. Yeah, less than
a minute of blur. So right on the "Gilded Mountain."
budd