In Plato’s Cave

I am blind and burnt.
An old man taught me home’s forgetting,

murderous seducer left me lost,
took the last path I knew

drained past parents piety.
I watched him mix them with hemlock

saying follow me as his legs went cold.
Some strange immortality closed his eyes

as he gave my hopes to Hades.
More than all I loved him, I loved

his insistent dying, his selfish folly
his lips when they swayed me to his side.

But I am dying unkissed in darkness
worse than Lethe he called truth—

I would settle now
for a flash of Aegean sun.

—Samuel Loncar

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Give the National Endowment for the Arts Back to the Public

Michael Astrue

For decades, Americans have become increasingly alienated from the American arts establishment. The main source for their…

Pro-Lifers and the Trump Administration: Wins, Concerns, and the MAHA Opportunity

Charles C. Camosy

Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the pro-life movements have received some…

Manners, Methods, and Greatness

George Weigel

Browsing Footprints in Time, the memoirs of Winston Churchill’s longtime private secretary, John Colville, I found a…