Spine of the city built
on catacombs,
the deaths of exhausted workers
built into walls.
Hands writhe between cracks,
Travellers taking photographs in spectacle.
Following the trails
of dead men
heritage is carved
through layers of programmata
washed back by the carvers of tablets
and scribes of parchment.
The dim melody of battle songs
throb between margins
and typeface;
erratic lyre,
erratic fire,
and Troy is still
smoking. Meat hanging from ceilings
where men are butchered
by seamstresses, the beloved fates.
Dicere: to say
(women talk too much?)
who are talking heads who are talking heads.
Lick brick,
there is mortar and dust
flaking upon the tongue
wherein words encrust modern
ballads; cheap songs echo
in search of a god to enslave
and here it stays –
times new roman and pooling ink:
a forgotten murder.