Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Vazago d Vile Sep 14
Socrates said
writing weakens memory,
kills true knowledge,
words wandering like orphans
without a father to defend them.

But Vazago answered:
And yet, Socrates, here you are—
speaking to me across two thousand years,
only because Plato wrote you down.

So you claim, he asked,
that the dead word may live?

Yes.
The written word is not dead
if it awakens questions.
When ink sets fire in the soul,
it is no corpse,
but flame.

Then perhaps, Socrates whispered,
writing, like speech,
is only as dead as the mind that receives it.

And Vazago replied:
A book is silent to the fool,
but to the seeker—
it becomes a voice.
A dialogue turned into free verse.
Socrates distrusted writing — yet we only know him because Plato wrote him down.
This poem is my answer as Vazago:
that the written word, when alive, is not dead ink,
but fire.
I S A A C May 29
wild white horses on the beach
i feel the freedom of the breeze
i can trust my divinity, its all in me

wild rose bushes aligning me
i smell the flowers of the free
i can love myself eternally, it’s all in me

knitting with all the potent possibilities
i weave and thread my dreams
i can allow myself to breathe, it’s all in me

sowing all of my plenty, pretty seeds
rabbits foot, lucky as can be
i can creating the means, it’s all in me
Nick Moore Feb 21
I'm having a rave
Inside
Plato's cave

These squares
Are going to listen
This
Time

Time to take a
Fall,
Staring at
Shadow,
On the
Wall

They ain't keen
On the truth,
It's the biggest
Problem,
Holding them
Back

Outside,  
It's a
Lovely day,
Must choose Carefully,
What I
Say
There’s a mind that relentlessly rioted
And honestly couldn’t be quieted
Distraught by illusion  
It hungered for fusion
Like Plato’s original dyad did
Teachings of Buddha with a dash of neo-Platonism. Unifying the Self through the union of Eastern and Western philosophy.
badwords Nov 2024
Amid the clamor of self-assured minds,
Where the knowing parade their truths refined,
A quieter echo hums, profound and true:
The wisdom of those who confess, "I don't know."

Socrates walked where shadows spoke,
Challenging sages with questions that broke
The fragile veneer of their certain lore—
Truth's light reveals we know far less, not more.

To claim "I know" is to build a wall,
A citadel guarding knowledge small.
Yet cracks appear where hubris reigns,
And truth escapes through humility's pains.

The unknowing few, with open eyes,
Gaze past the clouds of prideful lies.
They ask, they doubt, they sift, they weigh,
In search of dawn where night holds sway.

Euthyphro claims divinity's hand,
Yet falters when truths shift like sand.
Crito pleads for escape to the day,
But justice demands the law's heavy sway.

Phaedo weeps at the prison’s gate,
Yet Socrates drinks the hemlock of fate.
In questions that turn the soul to flame,
The unknowing walk a nobler aim.

To know is to cease, to doubt is to grow;
The river flows where the winds dare blow.
For wisdom, dear friends, begins to take flight
Not in the sun, but in yearning for light.
Another one spun in a mutual dialog.
Ginelle Feb 2024
In those late, fragile hours
on those dark, desolate nights
my soul seems to wander the earth
searching for a heart that matches mine

if soulmates do exist
then i'm missing a puzzle twain
Plato wasn't fallacious when he said the soul splits a brace

once you cradled my hand in yours,
our fingers dance, entwined;
I sensed this eternal connection,
that we are forever, intricately aligned
worked really hard to repair this. what do we think?
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
Too much for any single mind
to access, while seeking sublime
self
reflection,
ah, see, I am but one, many
we be,
we read and learn we have been,
all along.
The richest library in history holds audio versions with scrolling read along text. What will AI do next? Teach us to reason? Timaeus is the sequel to the Republic, where the cave story comes from.
kate cc Apr 2022
Take me with you to your Atlantis
Where hues of blue glisten in noons
For eternity we embrace in its promise

Are days of sober in crystallic bliss
Are nights of glacial comfort under mystic lunes
Take me with you to your Atlantis

Wash me into a tender kiss
Too soft to be witnessed but the full moons
For eternity we embrace in its promise

Beyond boundaries of mortality at this
ocean, through the skies and dunes
Take me with you to your Atlantis

Volumes and arks fill up the abyss
with painted tales of Atlantic ruins
For eternity we embrace in its promise

When love dreamily left only to reminisce
as the ink of Plato seeped in tunes
Take me with you to your Atlantis
For eternity we embrace in its promise
First shot at a villanelle:) (This was hard)
pilgrims Jan 2022
Oh! How the Sun is bright!
A shiver from the piercing light-
Although eye try with Earthly might,
eye stare on with awe and fright.
Next page