BRIAN DEMPSEY'S BROTHER

So, I see
you are the future

people of a 1000 years
beyond me.

My words see you
even though I can not.

I am the long dead
how curious it is

to be so
and to have you

read me
or of my ever

thinking that you would
hear my paper voice.

Finding it hard to believe
this scribbled scrap of paper

could outlive
the mind that. . .

never mind
never mind

so you are the new
here and now

and I am
not.

Am nothing.

My only merit being this
somehow survived.

An ordinary human
from 2017.

Paper I
must assume is

an outdated mode
of transport

for thought
or word.


I am as precious
as papyri

to you my future
archeologist.

Maybe now
mind merely talks to mind.

And so you are amazed
to find me

"...wandering about in country dark
the wind roaring in French

as it prowls and howls
about a house

somewhere near
Saint-Priest-des-Champs.

I mock the storm
howling at the death

of a loved one
to a night that does not care..."

It is like I have never been. . .

So, people of a 1000 years
from now

all you can know
is that I was

Brian Dempsey's
brother

and that a night
finds me here

in my despair
calling out his name

the only thing
I own.

I am just this
side of sane.

Perhaps by now
you have abolished death

and life goes on and on and on
without end?

Or even eased despair
to such an extent that. . .