Going About Its Business Poem by Dónall Dempsey

'Oh wall!
I'm amazed you haven't
collapsed
under the weight of drivel
you're holding up! '

the graffiti laughs
in self mockery.

'Happy the man
who is sleeping with you
tonight.
I'd be much happier
If I were! '

another wall
talks to itself
jealously.

'You ask, beautiful girl
how many kisses I've snatched?
I've snatched these ones and...
I'm not the only one to do so.'

yet another wall
kisses 'n' tells
in a red on yellow voice.

In the silence
the wallls are shouting
(a babble of voices)

Time is smiling.

'I came here.
Had a shag
- then I went home! '

another announced
in a who-gives-a-f**k manner.

'Lucius is stuffing it
into Caesu's mouth

a drunken scrawl
pronounces

amongst the inns of
THE ELEPHANT...THE LITTLE EAGLE
THE MERCURY & APOLLO.

It is the 23rd
August

AD 79

Mount Vesuvius
hasn't yet exploded.

Pompeii
dozes

in the lazy sun
of this

new morning

going about
its business.

***

The Pompeian graffiti still exists in all its extraordinary ordinariness and just goes to show that humans will be humans no matter what peroid of history we come to rest in. Most of it could be...now. And it amazes me that their 'now' is little different than our 'now.' People will be people. It is the day before the explosion and Pompeii is just being Pompeii and hasn't yet stepped into the history that will surround and preserve it. How fragile we all are and life is and how alive and fluent are their voices. Only history is static.

***
This 'exchange' dug up from the long ago when time is history and myth combined is worth more than gold and the voices that come back could well be our own.


NOTHING CHANGES

In the lost city
of Ur

a fragment
survives

The father/son
divide.

The conversation is
a confrontaton.

startling in its simplicity.

Father: 'Where have you been? '

Son: 'Nowhere! '

Seems like there's nothing
new under the sun.

Nothing...
...changes.