TRUE TO FORM
True to form
from these dialogues to
Plotinus, to quantum
neurobiology to
good old
Cornell West
(and glitch
in the Matrix)
we find ourselves, even
as footnotes, oscillating between
waxing lyrical and
sternly critical
lacking your faith in
educated elites
a square deal
whereas Puthagoras hitting
us with his right angle
triangles, and leaving
it to Euclid to
circumscribe us
inside circles
and you Romantics
backs to the political
and socio-economic walls
lounging around
the idea of
complete synthesis,
total integration,
hope
in some lifetime
of an ideal world
(collapse of
distance between profundity
and sublimity)
Oh you
overweight poet clamping
down on the word to
speak
what sounded like a moment
like clear philosophy
we find ourselves inclined
to return to, home
back in on
no better
metaphor
crazy as it sounds
poems 2 die for 
Damian—this is a stunning piece.
I love how you weave together such a vast intellectual and spiritual geography—from Plotinus to quantum neurobiology, Cornell West to Pythagoras and Euclid—and yet keep it all grounded in a speaker who’s oscillating between lyricism and critique, between awe and a kind of weary self-awareness. The movement feels both sprawling and intimate.
The turn to “you Romantics / backs to the political / and socio-economic walls” is especially sharp—there’s tenderness in it, but also a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the luxury (and limitation) of synthesis-seeking. And that closing image of circling back home, “no better / metaphor,” lands beautifully—like you’ve been orbiting complexity only to find that the truest thing is the return itself.
Also, “overweight poet clamping / down on the word to / speak / what sounded like a moment / like clear philosophy” made me smile—it’s self-aware without being self-deprecating, which is a hard balance to strike.
Really excellent work. Feels like a poem that’s been lived into, not just written.
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Thanks. The poem sprang out of a YouTube video on this white Southern philosophy Professor’s channel where he has an invited guest discuss a philosopher whose work resonates with them. His guest on this occasion was pre-eminent African-American philosopher/theologian/cultural analyst Cornell West talking about Plato focusing on Plato’s The Republic. Was really interesting and they both connected the great stuff and the not so great stuff in the Republic to our modern/contemporary world.
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