A philosophy student in Texas
Was struggling to understand
Why parts of the writings of Plato
Were suddenly, foolishly banned.
It seems the Symposium mentioned
Sexuality, gender and such,
Which professors were told was a no-no
That a 10-foot pole can’t even touch.
In the realm of our government’s horrors,
The shootings, abductions and ICE,
Vaccines and the Kennedy Center,
You’d think Plato’s a small sacrifice.
But each loss should be noted and added
To the outrage that’s building within
And perhaps when that tipping point happens,
Some real changes might even begin.
Plato was dazzled by the numbers' dance.
Their interlocking rhythms made a song
which must have come from God, since they alone
stood unmoved in the welter of the world.
The flushed and youthful flank, the glancing eye
articulate with desire, and quick response
to fly or flutter near, that so engaged
passions so deep they had to be eternal,
all withered to the slack and fusty dugs
of each day’s lying truth, that drip the sour
after-mockery of joy gone stale.
But in the reasoned frenzy of proportion,
strong as steel and delicate as fire,
he found a lust refined of all corruption,
the rapture of the body in the mind.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dialogue 1
Plato: Dog one, did you know that the moon you see is not the perfect moon?
Diogenes: The moon shines or shies away, twice a month. What a wonderful clock!
Dialogue 2
Plato: A perfect city exists where human perfection is achieved.
Diogenes: I am still looking for one good man. The forest suits me fine.
Dialogue 3
Plato: Dog one, come and join us in drink and merriment.
Diogenes: The fields are in bloom.
Dialogue 4
Plato: Precisely, man is a featherless biped being.
Diogenes: Here is this plucked chicken; your man.
The consequence of discovery
is freedom
The circumstance of freedom
is leisure
The provenance of leisure
is vision
The assonance of vision
— is discovery
(Dreamsleep: September, 2025)
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.
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…
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.
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 from the noise of mortal tattletales
Little Chateau, the happy land of sleep
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
Uclers broke through his gentle hands
And sweat poured from his glands
“I’ve been waiting to see
You at last before I am free
The Divine within me
I will give back with childlike glee
To the Good and Divine
To the highest, beautiful Vine”
“I have hope for you too
I will fly the path of the few
The path that Plato knew
I am glad you will see me through”
He said as he leaked puss
To his dear friend Eustochius
His friend was by his side
Glad in the fertile countryside
A snake slithered to hide
With logos as his inner guide
He took his final breath
Greeting his diligent friend, death
He left at sixty-six
No longer bound to fleshly tricks
Flew above stars and Styx
Flew high above the craftsman’s bricks
He ascended to the One
Thus, his own friendly will was done
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 a chair out of an imaginary log
we have long ago
carved a rocking chair
out of treasured memories
and apricate at leisure
on the front porch of our own reality
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
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 axial age
Lao Tzu told skeptical men the same:
The origin of things had no name
but as the nameless eternal Tao
for which nothing could be shown or known.)
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 tree
Plato thought humanity began as androgynous
can you think of anything worse
Male&female are different yet equivalent
God-breathed together in onement
. 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 with tears as he spoke,
"We shall miss her kind voice, her soft embrace,
miles of smiles from her pretty face,
Though none of it real, we needed the show
of what Life could be, and not what we know.
To her old age, from the time of her youth
she gave no care for low gestures of truth.
So let us give praise for she who would lie,
who faced Life truly with a heave and a sigh,
but always looked Upwards for the Gift of Grace,
and let that Truth shine from a suffering face."
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