Swindon Poetry Festival Donall Dempsey reading THE VISITATION...a poem written from a workshop run by Kim Moore. Strange to be reading it in public an hour after it was written....no time at all!
VISITATION
Brian walked
through the wall.
Paused, smiled:
halfways in - halfways out.
"Jaysus..!" he said.
"That always feckin' happens!"
He pulled the rest of him
through to this room
leaving a glowing
trail of ectoplasm.
"It makes me feel
like a bloody snail!"
"Sorry about the ghostly slime
it's hard to get used to
being dead
if ya see what I mean!"
I couldn't have of course
so I just nodded.
"And this ghost stuff
is really the pits.
Here I am and yet
here I am not."
He gave me a playful
punch on the shoulder
and went right through me
misjudging his new existence.
"Now, listen bud...all this crying
is getting on me nerves.
It's gotta stop.
You've got a life
to live...now...live it!"
And then like e clichéd
cockerel crowing at the dawn
he faded into the curtains.
"Jaysus...these curtains
are truly terrible
they'll have to go!"
"Well. . ?"
said the sunlight
"...will we get on
with it?"
The day waited impatiently
hopping from one minute to the next.
"Yes. . ." I said
"Yes."