We Once Were You Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Plague & battle
turn men into bones

eyes that once looked upon a passing sky
looked on it now as stones

nothing remains...nothing but
human remains.

In time it is 1776
& the local Polish parish priest

gathers & collects
this flowering of Death

collects & gathers
this Death that has flowered

lines the walls of his church
with skulls & shinbones

The Chapel Of The Skulls
(3,000 souls in all)
lines these walls

unique...grotesque
coming alive

in the camera flash

tourists trapped
tightly together

to get that one shot

that will make the folks at home
go 'Aghhhh! '

A terribly pimply adolescent geekishly greets it with: 'Cool...man! '

The living look
at the dead looking back at them

all the same

in the end.