What Up, Greek Titans?

Socrates’ banished poets from his republic
‘cause they ‘portray falsehoods and
appeal to our emotions and baser instincts
in a corrupting manner.’

Plato agreed, adding that those pesky poets
were ‘only good for promoting petty emotions,
like anger and lust and love.’

So what the fuck, Fathers of Philosophy?
You egocentric pogues
puffing and preening
about your rhetorical prowess,
you got the nads to pan poetry?
Say WHAT?!

Last time I checked,
the primary definition of rhetoric
is ‘the undue use of exaggeration
and bombast’: Further down that
list comes ‘the art of prose’ and the
‘art of influencing the thought
and conduct of an audience…’

And you fuckers wouldn’t let
us into your playhouse,
laying claims of baser instincts,
you dust farting windbags?

Where I come from we call a spade
a fucking shovel:
You rubes didn’t dis us ‘cause
of baseness and crudity;
you did it because you knew full well
that we'd smoke you gilded lillies
at your own game.

Suck down some hemlock
and ponder that, you posers.