POEM - Plato's Diner

Quiet kid in the corner;

ears open, nose in her phone

Midday, and you’re there,

as the babies smoke their vape-sticks;

lazily trying to appear more pensive

than they’ve yet become

And, shaking off the whispered mumbles

in their radio heads, their waning ignorance

is proudly loud

  

Is it ever okay to slaughter civilians?

Must we be part of a society?

Does the testable reality matter more

than strings of words in an old book?

These aren’t questions you find

particularly hard to answer,

but the smirk behind your coffee cup

says you still love knowing that young people

aspire to grow their minds;

and rightly so

  

You’ll be here till after dark,

then back to your booth before dawn

In your favored speck of the galaxy,

I have never been more than a poor cook

who knows how to hear your silence

What an absolute shame upon

this sick world (which we’ll never heal)

that you found your greatest comfort,

taking a whore like me home

And how I wish the entirety of me

deserved you

  

Still, ever more aged, and ever less relevant,

we lie in nearness throughout the nights;

such as our bodies will be made to do

once we’ve left this life behind

We laugh at ancient customs,

while honoring the happiest of them;

choking, slowly, on the odd fact

that morality and mortality are but

one, little letter apart

  

You love me with the constancy of a pulse

And to ask why would be to venture a question

which your talkative mind would have

some genuine difficulty answering;

but therein one finds the unspoken understanding

of why you and I are we

Thus, as those infants leave without tipping,

I trust your rolling eyes to find me

And, in this way, we will continue

until the diner doesn’t reopen