Promiscuous
innocent Keats singing of odes to nightingales and urns, mourning his beloved
girl all night long; by morn the automaton called Kant comes and looks upon the
sad scene with Stoic scorn, philosophizing categorical imperatives for all
possible worlds; teaching, lecturing, legal thoughts racing into the sky;
asking why but never knowing or feeling
why. Keats ignores him, crying constantly, manically writing a Hyperion a year
when tuberculosis suddenly encloses Apollo. Alone now for the first time in
history, Kant tries a dry dispassionate chant to Plato; and Athena, taking
pity, gives him rest at last, enwrapped in stone, happy and alone with his
thoughts.
___
Ross Knapp is a recent college graduate with degrees in philosophy and literature. He has an experimental literary novel forthcoming and various poetry publications in Blue Lake Review, Poetry Pacific Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, Burningword Literary Journal, Belle Reve Literary Journal, Carcinogenic Poetry, Blood and Thunder Literary Magazine, Verse Virtual, Storyacious, Tipsy Lit Literary Magazine, Hobo Pancakes, Clockwise Cat Literary Magazine, and The Corner Club Press. He lives in Minneapolis.
