Philosophers

In high school they had us read Shakespeare and Hemingway etc.,  and even Descartes and Wittgenstein in a "Philosophy/Religion" class.  That was all fine except when they started to tell me what old dead white guys were thinking when they were writing.  This did not sit well with me and this poem is what came out of my brain after that.

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                        PHILOSOPHERS
                        
   An iron leg walks the plank of chalk-dust but the balloon
pulls down the wave.  Opening my eyes  :  only pencil cases.
Still chicken little yells, "The sky is falling!"

   Soundless noises  pierce  empty microphones.   And a wall
knocks over the  form of the now forgotten worth  of it all.
Wrapped in (rapped with) ideas of this and concepts of that.

                          I am here
                        You are there
                       He is everywhere
                       
   And  yet all  is lost without  sight  of  the  invisible.
Without hearing the mute they  leave their houses.   Falling
to ashes they  stand deforming.   Without their  key,  their
house, its corners:  a meaningless store of space.

   Up-side-down I can sing a  song.   In-side-out  underwear
can still be worn without anyone knowing.   The shaven beard
grows even in death.

                          I am here
                        You are there
                       He is everywhere
                     nothing more needed
                  Yet too much more expected

(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.