Philosophers

They walk alone, apart, unheard,

Wanting to believe that this is their hour,

That the solid world has need of abstraction,

That pretty girls worship clever men.

Theirs are the politics of the invisible,

Querulous notes in society’s margin,

A life of adventure, trafficking in diamonds and spices.

The mind, after all, is a brothel of sensations,

And these unlikely rakes are addicts, connoisseurs,

Nescience and omniscience equal pleasures of the whip.


Behold the man, noble silhouette against a bookcase,

That eats, sleeps, shits, fucks, interrogates the mirror,

Phenomenon among phenomena.

All this, and the love of ellipses,

Of hunting the unicorn

And drawing circles in the sand!


These campus deities, teasing worlds into being,

Stare glumly into their teacups, consulting the leaves,

And secretly dream themselves handsome conquerors,

Apostles, angels, cleverer than ecstasy or death.