A Poem

The sound of young boys playing
In the street
Santiago de Chile
Final sweet days of summer
Girls in shopwindows delicately select
New school
Uniforms
Muffled hazy traffic sounds
As my ipod headphones play old school New York
New York by Grandmaster Flash

At the lunchcounter cafe today
Served by an old Chilean waiter
Who stood stiffly upright
In a uniform that must have predated
Pinochet
While the speakers blared old Oasis hits
From the days of the disappeared
And of course too Madonna's
Latest global megahit

Victor Jara's fragile hands
Which played a hundred songs
Of Solidarity and Revolution
Were torn apart fingernails ripped out
He was killed in the stadium
Where the best brands of the global marketplace
Are now plastered over everything
On display for thousands of
Wildly screaming
Fútbol fans and millions more watching on satellite

And everywhere in this city still
The gentle carabineros
In their olive uniforms and shiny black boots
Still mask a menacing silence
And through the throbbing beats
In the clubs lining leafy Bellavista streets
I can still hear it late at night
When the young people
Who never knew Allende
Stop to catch their breath
On the dancefloors or for a cigarette
In the street
Or in MTV Viña Del Mar resorts
And for a moment
Are all silent still