Not Even a Whiff of Humanity

You won’t believe this unless you’re convinced
The future’s always buried in the past.
That’s where you rummage around to find it.

Everywhere you turn there are characters.
No end to writers writing characters.
No end to the market for characters.

We’re telling you. No characters are real
Unless every last one of them is real,
Including all the characters you meet.

Fiction isn’t just full of characters.
History isn’t merely stocked with them.
Characters are history and fiction.

Tell us something lacking in character,
A poem about a stone that is a stone,
Not even a whiff of humanity.

In the future, the stone falls from heaven.
Pretty much everything human is gone,
And now the future’s buried in the past.