I often sit still for ages, and I philosophize,

sending others’ ideas into gross disrepute.

And by now I’m stiff, even my neck and feet,

And I must think of something, anything, I could eat.

We’re long past the days, aye, the great days of yore,

when we, thinkers sat, thinking, in elegant agora.

Passersby gave us gifts, lots of retsina and bread…

Even inferior thinkers had been, somewhat, well fed.

Yet today, I can’t earn even a single drachma

for strewing, freely about, pearls of arcane wisdom.

I eat only papyrus, and some ancient scrolls;

rolled up, ne’er too tightly, into inedible rolls.

I cannot continue edifying the vast ignorant masses,

like a Delphic Oracle: ambiguous and obscure;

Or before I answer yet another inane question

I’m likely to die, of hunger, or gross indigestion.

***