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. spartacus mmxii

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. So I went to the hill where the

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. He said, There are slaves in the hands

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 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.

Here is the text of the poem Spartacus MMXII by Simon Armitage. This poem was commissioned for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and originally appeared as a large-scale public artwork.