Nobody Wants To Go To The Olympics

The Olympics?

You believe

I want to go

To the Olympics?

Did I not go

The past six and seven years

And was it not

A colossal cluster-rub

Every single time?

The foot traffic

On the way there

The trash strewn

All over

Watching a man

Having his arms ripped off

Trying to win a Tug o’ War medal?

Every time the Olympics are held

We witness

The basest depravity

Of humankind

And we’re asked

To cheer it on

While we gobble our yak leg

And hold in our urine

Because the lavatory

Is a hole dug

By Apollo’s temple

Can we not

Do away with these

Tiresome tournaments?

I should rather

Go to the theater

For yet-another pointless remake

Of ‘The Birds’

Than sit through

An endless race

Wherein it shall end

With the man who wins the silver medal

Beating to death

The gold medal winner

Out of jealousy

Leading to all in the crowd

Storming the grounds

And murdering all in sight

If you’ve seen it once

You’ve seen it

A hundred times

I do not mind

Taking a man’s life

For no reason

But having to do so

And then walk

Ten miles back home

Covered in Athenian blood

In the blistering heat

Is ignoble

And unsanitary

Do you recall

The last Olympics

When the pox broke out

And swept the land

All because the Spartans

Refuse to wear masks

Into battle?

They did show up

Coughing and spewing

Their Spartan germs

On every competitor

And by the time

The games were done

You had to walk over

At least two or three bodies

On your way

To the concessions stand

I warned all

The first time they held these games

That were they to continue on with it

In the hopes that the flaws

Would subside

Eventually, they would have

That ignominious thing on their hands

We call ‘tradition’

And once something has garnered that moniker

There is destroying it

‘It is barbaric,’ you will cry out

And the plebes will shout back--

‘But it is tradition!’

And so we carry on

Maiming, sickening ourselves

Admiring how tender the yak meat is

When the Carthagians make it, yes

But more than anything

Wishing we did not have to go

One day, when these games

Are celebrating their thousandth

Or even two thousandth year

Our descendants will wonder

How this horrid event

Ever came to be

And they will investigate

And learn

That we did hate these games

As much as they do

And yet they will continue

Because there is no stopping

Something terrible

Once it is ingrained

In routine

But this year, I shall not go

And that is that

Though I may attend

The theater

This evening

I hear this production

Of ‘The Birds’

Is somewhat

Good