EXCERPT FROM:

Kilroy Was Here

When I died, frozen
I don't know
How it happened.
Four hundred years
Later, unfrozen
I am alive
Though dead to you
And your world.
I guess it's something
Of an art form
Reviving the frozen
Dead.

They go to so much
Trouble, speaking
The old language
Making the transition
As easy as possible.
These artists, scientists
Seemed puzzled
At the time
Why wasn't I grateful
Just to be alive

They didn't know my name
Who I was
And it took a couple weeks
Before I could
Really communicate,
By that time I was suspicious
So I told them
I was Kilroy
It was a whim
From my past
And I was beyond caring
What anyone thought
Four hundred years dead
And now alive

At first, their new world
Seemed the best
It could be
A democratic society
In which politics
Played little or no role
Technology was free
Trade with alein cultures
From the stars
Had created such wealth
No one cared
What you did
Life was art
But the worst part
What I hated most
Was the mind to mind
Communication
It was not telepathy
But empathy with thoughts
It's hard to describe
I didn't catch on
For quite a while
And when I did
I shut them out fast
They didn't understand
My attitude was bad.
It seems the brain
Not the mind
Has a geometric,
Mathematical configuration
That the mind, soul
Whatever
Can take hold of
And juxtapose
To another brain
So instantaneously, the two minds
Empathize, exchange thoughts
Once you learn
How to grasp the configuration
It's simple
And no one can enter
Without permission
I used my time
To explore, fine tune
My body,
Correct it's small faults
Flower into perfect
Physical well-being

That was okay
It was part of the program
These artists of the future
Expected and wanted
Me to be like them
Semi-immortal
Hundreds of years of possible life-times
They didn't know
For sure, how long

I was a living, historical curiosity
Which they wanted to exploit
Understand the past completely
I didn't disappoint them
I doled out facts, impressions
Bargained for privileges
Within six months
I was in training
To fly to the stars.

They didn't like
Letting me go
However, it seemed
I had an ability
Unfathomable
To empathize, think thoughts
Far away
To distant stars.
A requirement
To pilot starships
A dream of youth fulfilled



This is the start of Kilroy Was Here.
The middle poem of the three poems in Prophecies.




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