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, 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.
So I went online to track him down, to seek him out in the cyberworld, and typed his name into the search box, the key and the password.
So if you want to see Spartacus, come to the park, come to the park with me. If you want to see Spartacus, search him out in the 21st century. spartacus mmxii
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.
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.
And a whisper came back, a coded message, an underground password and key: If you want to see Spartacus, come to the park, come to the park with me. And as the sirens wailed and the choppers
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.
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.
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. So if you want to see Spartacus, come
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.
And we stood in the rain on the traffic island, at the roundabout’s broken white lines, and we aimed at the badges and logos of business, at the grilles of the four-by-fours, at the windows of showrooms and the revolving doors.
He said, Look for the hill where the ragwort grows, the slope where the dog-rose climbs. Meet me tonight with a brick or a stone, with a bottle or a bottle of rhymes.
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.