Spartacus Mmxii Today

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.

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. spartacus mmxii

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, 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’d known of him, the legendary rebel, the

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 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. You can’t see the crosses for the dust,

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.

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, 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.