philosophe of the philosophe knights
- date of birth: june sixth, nineteen-eighty
- hair: brown and red
- place of birth: round rock, texas
- eyes: blue
- height: five feet and ten inches
- complexion: fair-medium
- weight: one hundred eighty-two pounds
- sex: male
- ancestry: donnachaidh
- profession: educator
personal philosophy
We thrash against the inequality of society with fists of paint, of clay, of ink, of brass, of skin, of light, of sound – of right. In a moment - the moment - we must define the fleeting boundary of poetry. The untouchable art of poetry, its subjective whatitisliketobe, must become the concrete under our feet. This thesis must carve out the crucial difference between art as propaganda and mere propaganda.
The difference between poetry and rhetoric is murder and conspiracy. The bloodthirsty barbarism of society makes it crystal clear that someone must die. Trapped rats in an urban prison, the quasi-ritualistic killing of an unnamed someone rests democratically in the hands of the majority, serving as a debased safety valve of emotion. If the ignorant can stranglehold the enlightened, no idiot can die in this perverse rite of democracy.
Poetry means self-destruction in society. Poetry makes the last stand against all odds in a rearguard action for the future. Even avant-garde poetry does not exist for its own sake. All poetry exists to promote a better future at the cost of cultural warring and discord in the present. The surrealists wanted a certain level of cavalier existence to take root in society, a focused liberty that drained the world of its opacity. The punks wanted anarchy. The blues were made to sing the sorrows of a people who never wanted to see those sorrows again. The price paid for the poet is to no longer play the silent Elizabethan fool. The poet cannot be Ellison’s Invisible Man, untouchable and, likewise, invincible. These curses and blessings are anathema to the poet in this city, as the poet is a prophet. The poet is an Isaiah – singing first of Babylon’s destruction, then of the glory of Zion.
Warrior-poets shout like banshees because they refuse to see their future destroyed. The poet cannot be a rhetorician, eloquently mindful of the majority audience. The majority audience is planning on killing the poet, after all. The rhetorician has the option of slithering in the shadows, because the rhetorician requires the agreement of the audience to succeed.
The culling of a society is less debase than the sacrifice of its future voices. If, after all, the voices in the moment cannot see the hope of the future, then all will fall to despair and decay.
In response, the poet is locked and loaded.
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