And as the sirens wailed and the choppers clattered and the police piled out of their vans, he grabbed my arm and he pulled me clear, and he melted into the crowd and disappeared.
He said, You can’t see the chains for the rust. You can’t see the whips for the scars. You can’t see the crosses for the dust, but we’re still fighting where you are.
I met him at night by the boating lake where the fountain jumps and plays. He said, Don’t be scared. I am not a ghost. I’m not of those far-off days. spartacus mmxii
So I went to the hill where the ragwort grows, the slope where the dog-rose leans, with a half-brick wrapped in a carrier bag, with a copy of Big Issue magazine.
I’d known of him, the legendary rebel, the gladiatorial slave who’d broken his shackles, who’d raised his own army, who’d plundered his master’s grave. And as the sirens wailed and the choppers
We flared and we fused in the halo of streetlights, we danced and we dived and we ducked, till the shop windows rained, till the windscreens wept, till the airbags burst and the bumpers bucked.
He said, There are slaves in the hands of the banks, slaves in the arms of the state, slaves to the wage, to the zero-hour contract, slaves to the zero-hour rate. You can’t see the crosses for the dust,
And I’d heard of his final battle, the last stand, and his crucifixion there, and the famous story of how his body was never found anywhere.