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an outdated mode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. . .*
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
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an outdated mode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. . .*
*
Here there is a tear
and words alas lost
to what men
used to call time
and to a creature called
a mouse
fire...
a fragment of a mind
reconstructed from
what documents could be found.
All we know for certain is
that he was Brian Dempsey's brother
and that seemed to be
his only reason for existence.
And what
we can only wonder
was this thing
the writer calls
"...despair."
