Heidegger - Back from Syracuse a Poem by Jerry Monaco

Heidegger - Back from Syracuse - a Poem

Here I see the translucent, disappearing hands,
Of the philosopher polishing his mirror.
In Nosferatu's German twilight all is unclear
Except for the ravenous glass-breaking bands
Of men who rape even memory's ghost.
But there he sits dreaming dreary overwords
Of being to disinter all that undergirds
Untimely thoughts of meaning. Ungrateful host
Of his own mind, language itself limits the form
The world can bear, making nonsense of all
We hear. It was not for him to heed the call -
Screams in the street are merely history's storm
Which cannot penetrate a Philosopher's walls.
The fading grasp of being always falls
Into that mirror which is his mask;
What question is ultimate enough for him to ask?

Jerry Monaco
New York City
21 Feb. 2005
Shandean Postscripts to Politics & Culture






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