Point and counter point Plato has us by the balls

Of course I rage.
Watched by our secret government
for fifty years, because I needed a clearance
to do my mediocre Physics.
I still feel their presence.
    I forget about the dark suited men,
.     who ask my neighbors questions about me.
.     Do I care abut their answers?
.     I hide my deviance
.     On the other side of the moon.

Men of secrets huddle together
Nazi’s and communist cells, jihadists,
the fraternity of drone fliers
Men of secrets revere their precious knowledge.
.     What everyone wishes to know
.     are the origins of everything
f.    lowers, animal and us,
.     these thoughts delight us.

Secrets can catch you, pull you in
because, you know, Secrecy hides evils..
Authority hides behind secrets
secret bureaucracies, secret installations
vast computers listening in Utah, .
secret edicts from secret courts
hide the mailed fist.
all is shadow, democracy is dead.
    True singers tell everything
.     of worth, love, happiness, and the good
.     that never needs to hide.
.     Mysteries excite unsuppressed curiosity

We become a society of the cleared, and us, the uncleared
for I’ve fallen out of it, I’ve no need to know.
.     I’d rather watch squirrels run after each other
.     laughing at their quick tumbling..

Outside the compartments, there are other ways of life,
even the puppet master President doesn’t know
it will run away from him in his classified dreaming.
Are you satisfied with your cubicle?
The bit you need to know to work and go home
watch the TV tell you what else you need to know
as relentless as this poem must be.
We are in Plato’s cave, Democracy is no more.
.     Reject the cubicle if you can
.     cost effective spirit crushing.
.     I sing the song of our freedom
.     to talk around the water cooler.
.     Fuck Plato.

Do you know the meaning of this eclipse
the classifying shadow blotting out our truth?
Know the eclipse as I do, the habits of silence,
extend into you,   endangers your soul,
when you can’t talk about where you go
whether ventures into space, or  hovering over silent seas.
Or the desolation of motel rooms in secret locations.
.     We are not made to be hidden
.     we need to display ourselves
.     dance mating rituals
.     do pratfalls, be honest.

Secretes hide the little satraps,
erected from mission statements, obscure and secret.
It’s the scale that astounds, so many layers
entrenched in secret budgets, protecting  turf.

The new octopus has its sucking arms everywhere
for our protection or theirs, and no one questions,
Congress is silent, and the few objectors are lied to.
The agency heads lie to us, the President lies,
its all in the code of deniability,
we have no need to know.
Does our security need the ‘war’ on terror,
and the corporations running it;
privatized security shells, black window office buildings
with secret contracts and secure budgets.
Corporations cooperate, give their data, our data freely
it’s in their interest to control their market, us.
.     Free men and women do not need this entwining
.     we reject the slavery of gauging everything economically,
.     we are more than money and safety above all else.

I can’t talk of the wonders, light beams hot and lethal,
the vast installations in deserts,  fearsome emissions from deadly crystals,
frothy chemicals deep and deadly glow,. projecting photon fingers;
roasting the invisible far in space,

Few know about the scale of this endeavor
buried in Pentagon secret compartments.
We can’t talk about the cost to all of us.
The cost of the CIA, NSA and the hidden agencies.
We have a million people in prison
we have a million people with top secret clearances,
its gutted our schools, ruined the jibs we need,
while we watch TV for sports, spectacles
and other kinds of pleasing news.

They can peer into the ocean depths,
into the crags of city and suburb,
desire to peer into everyone’s soul
gauge our suitability,  passivity.,
And manipulate us to make it so.

Kent Bowker, July 4, 2013

One thought on “Point and counter point Plato has us by the balls”

  1. Kent, I think we should talk, be friends, enjoy the humility in each others truth, and co-create the spirit we both recognize in Nature, that which was captured by the Romantic Poets. You can put any label you choose to define that spirit. I’ll respect it. I call it God, and I trust that I’ll get the same respect from you.

    In this poem, I love your irreverent response to those who believe truth can only come by way of the intellect. Your truth, the poet’s truth, is more imaginative, intuitive, more emotionally, rather than intellectually expressed. Once again, you see the contrasts in life, and you offer the reader a choice, but I think we see life a little differently. You focus on the dark side more than I do.

Comments are closed.