Democracy dies in dankness. A ring of smoke,
it goes wafting to the ceiling of the studios
you share with several twenty-something bros
you sort of knew in college; another toke,
and then the conversation turns baroque:
what if all the mind believes it knows
is just a holograph? can we suppose
that Croatan were aliens at Roanoke?
What were we saying? Yes. Democracy.
Boy-fucking Plato thought it was a bad
idea, mostly, prone to demagogues;
reason crowded out; stupidity
inevitably ascendant; even a mad
king better than a congress of rabid dogs.