Discourse: for Stanley Rosen. (Notes & Comments: June 2003).(Poem)

 
   1 
 
   As to whether there persists--enlighten me-- 
   a dialectic: labour into desire. 
   Forgive my small vocabulary that tries 
   and abides your patience. What a wonder's 
   man the philosopher set on his throne. 
   What a wonder he is, and how 
   abysmal. I would not have you say 
   I speak ungratefully; or that there's self 
   going spare in our unsparing tribute. 
   Arbeitsknecht by adoption, I never 
   slam down advice, even to shake the building. 
   Perhaps (but not likely) I may be still 
   a whizz at ordinary language and you 
   mishear things. 
 
   2 
 
   No, put this way: cancel, expunge, annul, 
   self-reference. Philosophy keeps up 
   embarrassment and expense. I'd quit us 
   of further scars had these now been incurred. 
   You're magisterial in judgement's gorge 
   where the rocks are at all angles and the stream 
   huggers its way through: 
   let's flip with self-projection's paper boat. 
   Language not revealing to the elect 
   only; and wild descenders pierced by ...