Across the vast sprawling streets
And wide labyrinth of night,
There they lie, waiting until
The bewitching hour, midnight.

Their names reel off like old myths -
Eponyms and history:
Each corner, curve and crevice
Steeped in the dust of the past.

Dual names for each road, lane, street,
Where bilingual signs speak
Of the ghosts whose names adorn
And brand their listless faces.

Signposts to stories and songs
Long posited in the past,
On the tongues of the living,
Go deu, always there to last.

Now they sleep, the living dead,
A stone plaque above our heads.
And there, they will never die,
For sleeping gods never lie.