I had to look in my old philosophy book to remember half the things I needed for this poem.
If you walk through the doors,
And if your thing is noticing table numbers,
You will see they are not numbers
At all,
But philosophers.
If you sit at Table Rousseau,
All your food will be organic.
Your napkin will be imprinted with
Quotes from ‘The Social Contract’
And your drink today will be
But a glass of water.
If you sit at Table Plato,
Your menu will be brought over,
But will not be accompanied with food.
For life is but ‘a dance of shadows’
And what is the point of eating
When one’s life should not be about
Worldly pleasures?
If you sit at Table Nietzsche,
You will be served only with a
Long black,
From which you may stare into the
Empty blackness that does
Mirror the world.
If you sit at Table Freud,
You will be served a
Very suspicious looking
Breadstick.
If you sit at Table Marx,
You will only be served as much coffee
As the person on the table next to you.
Unless you are a capitalist,
In which case
You will be thrown out.
If you sit on Table Rorty
(as he is a known existentialist),
You will be expected to
Upend your table and turn to your
Neighbour,
Expecting him to do the same.
If you sit at Table Aristotle,
You will be expected to order
By yourself.
But if you stay on,
Although your food was
Organic,
Imaginary or
Suspicious,
You will meet a very interesting persona.
He hardly ever strays from the kitchens,
Where he makes every order
From scratch.
But when he does venture out,
You will find him
Cleanly shaven with
Very white teeth.
And he will introduce himself
As the
God of the Philosophers.
By the way, I’m not religious.
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