'Graffiti' a poem by Lisa Gorton
‘I wonder this wall can bear the weight of such words’
Graffiti on a wall in Pompeii
The city is smaller than you expected.
Its houses turn their backs on streets –
And given half a chance
who wouldn’t bunker down behind a stack of silence?
An arm’s length of wall permits any depth
of meditative calm or your money back –
Its walls are made of potsherds, broken bricks and stone
cut from the hill’s mouth, chain-lugged to the city –
It happened just as you picture it:
slaves bent double against the weight, whip cracks and flies,
that crowd in the marketplace breaking off mid-sentence
to see peace dragged in as a pile of stones –
The stucco of the city walls is everywhere
scratched with these piss-riddled importunities –
– Cruel Lalagus, why don’t you love me?
A wall can bear the weight
– All the girls love Celadus the Gladiator
The weight is nothing to the wall
– Caesius faithfully loves M[… name lost]
A wall can bear the weight
– For a good time, turn right at the end of the street
Out of the dark, ashes fall softly.
We have to stand up again and again to shake them off.
What a weight of light!
The dark is smaller than you expected.