March 1, 2004
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All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal. Ergo Socrates can be killed. Socrates is a threat to The State. Threats to The State must be removed. Socrates must be removed. The removal of Socrates will not silence Socrates: Even his voice being carried breath by breath threatens The State. His voice must fall silent, so his breathing must end, so too those who breathe his words must fall silent as well. Clearly our ends must silence him completely, or his threat to The State will continue; however, to truly silence him we must stop not only his breath, but every breath that carries his voice from citizen to citizen. To finally silence Socrates, we must destroy the supporters of Socrates; dismantle their lines of communication by isolating anybody breathing Socrates; we must track their movement, and limit their associations, discover what they read, decipher what they write to uncover their Socratic conspiracy to bring democratic consensus to this Republic. We simply need the right opportunity to sway popular opinion; an outside threat would do, or a national tragedy, or some natural cataclysm that would shake the very foundation of society, then we'll blame those Socratic traitors for teaching moral relativism. Then it is decided; first we kill Socrates. Oh, there is one more thing: It would be nice, if we could all profit from this affair. · · · · · ·
Poetry on Swans Gerard Donnelly Smith, a poet and musician, teaches creative writing, literature and composition at Clark College in Vancouver WA. CERRO de la ESTRELLA (Logan Elm Press, 1992) was chosen for The Governor's Award for the Arts in Ohio, 1992. Excerpts from THE AMERICAN CORPSE (10 poems) were published in Apex of the M in 1995. He is the current director of the Columbia Writers Series, an Honorary Board Member of The Mountain Writers Series, and co-advisor of the Native American Student Council at Clark College. He has also organized readings for Poets Against the War. Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this work on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work on the Web without the expressed written authorization of Swans. This material is copyrighted, © Gerard Donnelly Smith 2004. All rights reserved. |
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