“You can’t approach everything ironically,” whispered Socrates
into his chalice. “‘Some problems are solemn as poison,’
said Socrates,” said Plato. “You must reason and rationalize,
reign in destructive appetites-”
“We disagree,” say Guns N’ Roses
and every Batman villain.

“Consider:
the path to enlightenment curled through Manhattan,
terminated in Hiroshima, Nagasaki; now x’s mark
the dead-eyed stick approximation of the reasonable human.

Empirical evidence suggests ‘insanity’ is our one,
only viable option,” said the Joker to the thief,
air quotes to mock society still swimming upstream.
“Don’t blame Plato,” he said, “he couldn’t have foreseen.
He’d say Socrates said very different things if they were alive today,
don’t you think?” Socrates nodded to his hemlock, building
his resolve. Plato observed, considered:

“we are all so eager to die
for our principles, or not, and for our convictions,
so eager to kill, or not. It could require
a lifetime of dedication to abstract concepts
to make any useful sense of the human condition.”
Batman, rarely articulate: “we must dedicate our lives to something.”
“Of course,” agree his nemeses.

“We must question,”
“We must quell the men who question,”
“We must continue in their tradition,”
“We must concede

comforting thoughts are crutches propping crippled philosophers upright;
their discarding brings us closer, only, to our sea and soil progenitor,”

said Socrates.
said Athens.
said Plato.
said the nemeses.