THE CARATACUS BLOG

Nam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant?
(Tacitus, Annales XII, xxxvii)

20 Oct 2005

Beggars

To beg the question surely begs the question:
Must questions exist merely because answers
loiter down blind alleys? Ragged beggars
of questions tout on every common corner,
litter the portals of our premises,
flaunt their suppositions for our pity:
their middles undistributed, their hocs
entirely post, their sequiturs all non.

Ad hominems, slope-sliders, logic-choppers:
shaking their poor amphibolies for alms,
making their hidden meanings clear with language,
with words that smoothly flow from line to line,
easy to understand, chock-full of grammar -
they thrive because we cannot prove they don't.

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