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That Fifth Ring

For seven years we were engaged.
Blast warnings had it questioned from the start.
It brewed in the background and we questioned it more
As girls became women; as babies were born.
Because we’ve got questions in our colourful numbers, and we’ve got cynicism.
And we’ve got more views than a panoramic Olympic Park viewing-platform 
And we don’t tend to charge for them.
At such crosses, but we’ve seen eye to eye 
And watched how Britain became.
No build-up would’ve had us prepared for our passion for these Games.

What a marriage. What moments we’ve had:
The immortal; the binding; the divorceable:
From all the different balls and courts
That carve out our continents and construct our forts. 

Whether national heroes homing first Golds
Or legends rising again, more records to grow;
Aquatic drifts; bird-in-flight hurdling: 
Born to do it skins permanently surfacing;
Molten hearts pumping the colours of our nations
Showcasing countries’ curvatures and the mantles of our natures:
Shouts from outside, I’m scrambling through the choices:
‘COME ON LEWIS’—I never knew my neighbours had voices.
Fighting out the heats with lifetime bests;
Killing Kings of Grass in three straight sets. 
Feel the world: get off your bike and golden kiss the girl.
To everyone spurring their life dreams long;
To everyone who bled for bronze.
Because our British voices aren’t limited.
And we hope that our bona fide cries picked your hearts up off the finishing line, wherever you’re from.
See we do capacity crowds for heats
And stir up the energy so each man has their best to defeat.
Because we will scream for effort around here.

Broken jaw, plates in and back the day later.
This is the kind of devotion that makes good isles great. 
So if we’re spectating on some bent and crooked ways,
We will shout out officials if it’s cracking the game;
Cry you off the court if it’s crushing the name.
For the hopeful, tired, ugly, we haven’t cowered from a din,
Especially when three-time second-place Olympians bring it home and finally win.
15 years of dreaming later, 
400 gram gold medal taker. 
Double thick skull. 

Personality, and it was everywhere too. 
True, so much of it only the world could bring to us,
But so much only Briton could have brought to you.
From standing ovations for handball-floor cleaners 
To Jamaican lightning striking out impassioned demeanours;
8 shooting Koreans, the most embarrassed on the planet;  
Stands erupting for losing rowers, these Olympics have had it.
Will anything beat that Saturday’s roar of the nation?
Katie Turner, body dropping in elation:
Warm knees double-kissing the canvas like a timeless lover;
Kept apart for hours on hours, souls screaming for each other:
Punch after punch, bout after bout, desperate for the union, rout after rout, 
Wanting to be ringed up, married throughout: 
“I am this ring and we were never in doubt; 
Me and my other, we were made for each other.”
This is more than just a tournament: this is how humans come together:

The hands in heads, the heart shocked tears;
The sweat-drenched minds that’ve waited years and years;
The 8 or so billion other watching eyes,
Huddled around lights to live in their pride;
Congratulating competitors before the flag & the stride;
Exchanging celebrations to keep the spirit alive;
Smashing into the semis when they said you were done;
Running with everything you have when you’ve already won. When finishing last would have done. A final run which a lifetimes’ worth of inspiration can be pensioned from.
Athletes that make some Premier stars look like poorly-crafted counterfeits:  
Replicas of grander, far more deserving Olympic original outfits.
In a nation that classes West Brom-Sunderland a Super Sunday.
The Games can only be for superlatives and history. 
Ah, my voice is gone.  

But my best moment, of all, was our moment: Our Olympic moment. 
How we retailed our long-term employment as consumers for a sabbatical of citizenship. 
And what we found in it was gold.

See world: I think you may have given us
More than we could ever have given you.
You should have seen Us this time last year;
You should have been here.
See, not everything is merry on this Isle of ours;
This isle of nightmares and dreams:
Our seams stretch, sometimes.
And our multifarious reality has us deprived of collective plurality. 
“Happy breed of men”—No, this was a world ago.
The Britain I know has never been great. 
And yet not much has changed this year. 
Maybe things have got worse. But now, you’re here.
A mild, temperate climate
That’s somehow found a feeling of equatorial extremity.
An island ordinarily split so many ways
That battles to find a voice between three separate crosses
And a dragon that’s always astray.
A Team GB, that lops Northern Ireland like it doesn’t exist.
A United Kingdom without a King.
Before last year, what use would a Union Jack have been?

Empty seats, more signs of disconnection,
A complexion that all the world could see.
The hollow-crowned behaviour of the top.
And the bottom 1%: they’re always making the screens:
Parliamentary scandals; foreign invasions;
Late-day summer riots; bankers’ payments:
Dominating our representation overseas. But what about we?

Then, in stadium circles we were given space to bite:
Not only did we find our voice, miked, but our voice was alike:
And our sound shot around the rings picking up power:
Hard work, respect, don’t stop, take nothing for granted.
A two-week continuous roar we all felt, echoed and chanted.
Planted somehow as things we feel are British, but only ever see written
Across the faces of our authors as they mask sharp decisions.
But our Olympians have javelined new lines into our hearts.
Blood lines that we remember with some amnesia from a play we staged maybe far far away;
A previous life, or a dream. 

And what we saw in these, our champions, were people just like us.
And through them, we have together learned, relearned, a kind of passion; A hot rush of communion: far from violence, far from Nationalism, unintimidating. Far from politics, detached from sovereign.
A passion of us, powered by us.
For people, our little Island people, who have worked and fought and striven to be better.
An anthem sung with a human heart; a truly nationalistic heart
Departing and condemning the content 
To the realm of fairytale in the face of purely directed pride without accent.
I’ve belted that song all over.
But I doubt I’ll ever feel it as right,
Hear it hit the same chord
As it did on that night.
Chorusing the night black. Timeless engagement.

But we took more too: 
Better defined by our athletes, the bonds between us people thickened new.
In the observed words of high internationals & the foreign abroad faces on the land, we’ve been reminded how much merit there is in collective acceptance.
That, despite the issues and hot debates, to be living how we live,
Is something nearing great. 
That, without the fire and without the conflict,
There wouldn’t be a fifth Olympic ring to uplift.
Being host to this Olympic unity, we have in some way played hosts to ourselves. And remembered how important this dirty dinner party is.

And so this Summer, Britain became. 
We’ve found our platform to perform; we found our stage.
Problem-ridden, still, possibly always. 
But, to understand our union flag lines; to understand our island mentality; its hard history, its present and its future could be given no better frame than this 2012 Olympic Games.
This wet, passionate wonderland.

Finally, our blood and our country
Has been represented and seen correctly.
And from it, we have been, for moments, united.

World, it’s been an honour to be your hosts this night. 
What a feast we’ve made together:
This golden O
Where inside no angle can hide;
This country’s work;
This motivation;
This natural destination; 
This moment.
I’m not sure we could have had anything better;
This is more than just a tournament: this is how humans come together.
Hopefully, I’ll get my voice back soon.

That Fifth Ring (Original)

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That Fifth Ring (Reduced)

For seven years we were engaged.
Blast warnings had it questioned from the start.
It brewed in the background and we questioned it more
As girls became women; as babies were born.
Because we’ve got questions in our colourful numbers, and we’ve got cynicism.
And we’ve got more views than a panoramic Olympic Park viewing-platform 
And we don’t tend to charge for them.
At such crosses, but we’ve seen eye to eye 
And watched how Britain became.
No build-up would’ve had us prepared for our passion for these Games.

Whether national heroes homing first Golds
Or legends rising again, more records to grow;
Aquatic drifts; bird-in-flight hurdling: 
Born to do it skins permanently surfacing;
Molten hearts pumping the colours of our nations
Showcasing countries’ curvatures and the mantles of our natures:
Shouts from outside, I’m scrambling through the choices:
‘COME ON LEWIS’—I never knew my neighbours had voices.
Fighting out the heats with lifetime bests;
Killing Kings of Grass in three straight sets. 
Feel the world: get off your bike and golden kiss the girl.
To everyone spurring their life dreams long;
To everyone who bled for bronze.
Because our British voices aren’t limited.
And we hope that our bona fide cries picked your hearts up off the finishing line, wherever you’re from.
See we do capacity crowds for heats
And stir up the energy so each man has their best to defeat.
Because we will scream for effort around here.

Ah, my voice is gone.  

In a nation that classes West Brom-Sunderland a Super Sunday.
The Games can only be for superlatives and history. 

But my best moment, of all, was our moment: Our Olympic moment. 
How we retailed our long-term employment as consumers for a sabbatical of citizenship. 
And what we found in it was gold.

See world: I think you may have given us
More than we could ever have given you.
You should have seen Us this time last year;
You should have been here.
See, not everything is merry on this Isle of ours;
This isle of nightmares and dreams:
Our seams stretch, sometimes.
And our multifarious reality has us deprived of collective plurality. 

But then, in stadium circles we were given space to bite:
Not only did we find our voice, miked, but our voice was alike:
And our sound shot around the rings picking up power:
Hard work, respect, don’t stop, take nothing for granted.
A two-week continuous roar we all felt, echoed and chanted.
Planted somehow as things we feel are British, but only ever see written
Across the faces of our authors as they mask sharp decisions.
But our Olympians have javelined new lines into our hearts.
Blood lines that we remember with some amnesia from a play we staged maybe far far away;
A previous life, or a dream. 

But we took more too: 
Better defined by our athletes, the bonds between us people thickened new.
In the observed words of high internationals &amp; the foreign abroad faces on the land, we’ve been reminded how much merit there is in collective acceptance.
That, despite the issues and hot debates, to be living how we live,
Is something nearing great. 
That, without the fire and without the conflict,
There wouldn’t be a fifth Olympic ring to uplift.
Being host to this Olympic unity, we have in some way played hosts to ourselves. And remembered how important this dirty dinner party is.

World, it’s been an honour to be your hosts this night. 
What a feast we’ve made together:
This golden O
Where inside no angle can hide;
This country’s work;
This motivation;
This natural destination;
This moment.
I’m not sure we could have had anything better;
This is more than just a tournament: this is how humans come together.
Hopefully, I’ll get my voice back soon.

benjacobsuk