Discourse Chronicle

“Philosophical Poetic Polemic” by Joshua Butcher

Snippets of time snatch quality space,
Space and time, one Hegel-of-a Kantinuum.
Plato with play dough fashioned the Forms,
Oh bother, said Aristotle, what’s the Matter?
Then Aquinas went medieval on his class[(re)(ifications)]!
But let us not forget that saintly sex-crazed monk,
Who brought us an august catholic confessional.
I back and Thou forth, merry go we round,
Swing pendulum swing, slip up, slide down,
Its all this, its all that, Sisyphus climbs up to your lap,
And ponder this sitting and setting of System,
Drink deep of the swell, of the Spirit, of the Agon,
Polemical dialectics of Kierkegaardian proportion,
Heidegger you dig her we dig her now (but only just),
Shall we slip and elide the Lacanian subject,
And pass on to go by the power of Foucault?
If the Idea is an ideal conjunction junction,
Can faithless Form lead to full-bodied function?
It all pell-mell to gorgeous Gorgias going, going, goes,
And anything goes; those running with feet, on their toes.
And (Dar)rida I leave out, so many dear de—parted friends,
I trust they are forever so clever: just means to dead ends.

[Josh is a colleague of mine from the Communication department who allowed me to post his poems here. He shared this and another one in Rhetoric and Poetics a few weeks ago. It brought me to tears from laughing so hard. BK]

category: Humor, Life, Poetry, Rhetoric and Poetics