Plato Poems

Plato and the Poet

Poetry, Plato says know it;
"Go," though, he says to the poet.
It's good to be good,
But be understood, 
Best if you never do show it.

DAILY GRATITUDE MUSIC AND PLATO

Today I’m grateful for music and for Plato
to his words I often cling :

Music, he said, gives soul to the universe
Wings to the mind
Flight to the imagination
And life to everything…

I'm not a bit like Socrates

All I know is that I know something,
though I agree, it ain't all that much.
But those like Socrates who say all that they know is nothing
seem to me to be completely out of touch.

Rousseau in the Happy Land of Sleep

The first modern man and honest human
A lone father from Plato’s Republic
An innocent dove corrupted by man
But who learned how to play his soul’s music
Though his flesh by decree was frail and sick
Whose love was philosophy with her veils
Though he was pelted with rocks by man's gales 
Now on the island where angels still cheep
Far

Death of Plotinus

Friendly sage from the starless height 
Now dying without fright 
In his human and earthly sight 
The cosmos dimmed its light 
Dying from old diphtheria 
Still his will looked higher 

He lost his voice to teach and greet 
That poured wisdom so sweet 
All he could do was meekly bleat 
Uclers formed on his feet

The Rocking Chair of Memories

a Zen philosophy states 
that all form is emptiness
yet it’s not
as all emptiness is form
but in essence not

Plato maintained that
its essence 
is in its purpose 
the idea of the chair 
preceded its existence 
the idea of the chair 
contains its purpose  

while the philosophers are bellyaching 
over whether one could and 
actually should 
fashion

Passion - Metaphorical Realism

through the key-hole surgery of my delicate heart 
you have reached into the inner sanctum of my soul 
in Plato’s cave where I have locked away my demons 
betrayed by worm casts of secretive earthworms 

cold and unyielding
queen conch shell lips suited for bathroom decoration 
relentlessly searching out my responses 
fevered brow only registers your

Plato - Allegory of the Cave

dead men walking
predicting patterns
anticipating outcomes 
self limiting possibilities
languishing in darkness
blind leading the blind
a tragedy of our times

14-December-2022

All About Nothing

ALL ABOUT NOTHING

Long before modern nihilism
Plato spoke of khora, 
the receptacle of nothingness 
as the existential foundation
of all things shown and known.

Nonsense, the men of Athens said
for we stand firmly on the ground,
to which Socrates replied: 
If no space is in and about the ground
how could you or me be found?

(And in China in this

Five Marble Pillars For New Year

To learn how to recite koine Greek
That I may drink from the life-giving creek

Finish reading the words of Plato
To grow my knowledge thereto

Give up eggs and milk
So I can fully wear the white silk

Travel this dark world of hellfire
That I may hear Christ’s silver lyre

Be better for aeons to see
So I can become a marble

Clerihew Plato

Plato thought humanity began as androgynous
can you think of anything worse
Male&female are different yet equivalent
God-breathed together in onement

What Are Words - a Florilegium Poem

What are words other than coffin nails be?
Who does it belong to when it rails me?
An empty vessel at best that bails thee.

Lend me your ear and draw your heart near;
my words might seer, but hark the raw fear.

The poets have been forcibly silenced.
We view circumstance through a narrow lens,
a plethora of senseless violence.

If all

Second Best Truth

. for public domain

( liberally inspired from Socrates' "second best account" from Plato's dialogue Phaedo )

Up the road a little and beside a pond,
with a view of dew which she grew so fond,
where she shed her Grace after her demise,
and a lifetime of forgiven lies,

near a wooden cross, a throw from an Oak,
a Preacher preached

Plato Epigram Translations

PLATO EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS

These epitaphs and other epigrams have been ascribed to Plato...

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

We left the thunderous Aegean
to sleep peacefully here on the plains of Ecbatan.
Farewell, renowned Eretria, our homeland!
Farewell, Athens, Euboea's neighbor!
Farewell, dear Sea!
—Michael

An Apology For Love

He had doubt about telling love … to laities.
Doubt does sprout, and he stopped writing, Ladies,
Not lines, nor about wines, yet about his love,
But he thought: ought I not to find why and how?   

He found that Plato, not NATO, nor Tomato, 
Warned and scorned at us for writing about love, 
Yet he

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