FREEZE-DRIED
fudge soft
was my brain at my
first philosophy class
Plato’s dialectic wholesome,
why should not the State be
good and strong
and solid and true?
why should I not be
thinking axiomatically
working my
way slowly
towards great gnosis
at the cave’s entrance
why should this not all be,
even in a philosophy class,
some desert of
the real shadow show
programmed to
amuse
this unspecified
superior intelligence?
But these are questions for
later
not for poor white boy
at mountainside university
refugee from
all that Christian National
Education might teach
true
to apartheid
and so, face-beaming, I
did drink it, savour
swallow
every joyous scrap of
the fat one via
Professor Obi Wan’s
interpretation
the Jewish boy in the corner
(so slightly older
reading his way into
territory
full-on genealogical, beyond
good and evii
scowling at my
naivete,
having not
become my friend
Nietzsche not yet
my philosopher of choice
outside, of course, outside
the theatre down
the slopes
beyond the steps
something stirring
something
at a different pace,
with a different
dialectic
about to explode
about
to rock to the core
but this
down the line
from up in this high place
easy to calculate
work with
established truths,
historical certainties, clear
percentages
down there
as bra Chris wrote
its all
in graffiti, still
yet in code
soon
world going to
go full on punk, class-war
deconstructive
defeat in Vietnam
meaning
power
of powers
determined to determine
we think how they say,
are
so subtly, subtly
forced
to do as we are told
mind put on hold
fast-food fried down
to the last algorithm
brain
freeze-dried, feel
free to liquify
fudge soft
back then
but maybe
Plato was right
poems 2 die for 