Premature Requiem For A Philosopher, B.A.* Poem by Donna Ialongo

Premature Requiem For A Philosopher, B.A.*



4 years he spent for a June.
all in love
with minds as great as his.
caught in the pressures
of Descartes and Kant -
and muddling like a puppy dog
in a summer of existentialism.

the bloodless justice in his eyes
and empty anger of his stomach
made him look to Knowledge
and march
as just as one color can be
to love the right
and love even the wrong.

he thought
and because he thought,
he was.

he acted his desires.
hated the violence of home
and the unforgotten war
which he read between the lines
on his professors' faces.

'All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players..
They have their exits and their entrances...'

what of it?
his heart too was in seven stages
Baby, Schoolboy, Lover.
Now.
Ready.
to be or not to be
a Soldier.
yes, full of strange oaths
of pacifism
of love no soldier ever uttered
'Even in the cannon's mouth.'
a bullet has been waiting months on years
to lodge its way and settle
in the left hemisphere
parietal lobe
to break strings of greyness
which hold a golden age's hope.

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