Ruins of Troy

When Schliemann was busy about excavating
The ruins of Troy
The joke was if he didn’t find them in one layer
He definitely did in the next,
So that layer by layer he found anew
The ruins of Troy.

Now, one way to view this
Is that he was a fool on a fool’s errand, 
Desperate and desperate to locate, at long last
The ruins of Troy.

The other, of course,
Is that he never lost hope,
That one day he would discover 
The ruins of Troy.

Hope, against all adversity,
Has been what the Demagogues
Have been declaring 
For nearly two hundred years.

In all that time
They have  unearthed numerous examples of
The ruins of Troy,
And somehow found them shining,
Yes, even
The ruins of Troy,
That city conquered
In myth
Heralded by a blind poet 
Who probably didn’t even exist,
Who didn’t even mention the wooden horse
That of course Schliemann would never find
No matter how much he poked in
The ruins of Troy.

And yet those Demagogues
Persist
In their foolish quest of hope,
Foolish,
As all dreams are,
Hopeful in the face of despair,
For a better tomorrow, even when all looks darkest in
The ruins of Troy, 
Hector dragged round in the dust,
Again and again,
The losing side’s hero,
Not even worth the focus of the poem,
Of the so-called wrath of Achilles, 
And all the invading hoard.

Well, sometimes victory takes ten years
And sometimes less,
And sometimes even
The ruins of Troy
Can shine again,
The hope found again,
Given another layer,
Another foundation,
And the horses roar
And the gods rally
And even the rivers run wild
As another day
Begins.

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