IN MEMORY OF THE PHILOSOPHER FRANK CIOFFI
(Died January 1st 2010)

by Edward Greenwood

You liked to lift appraising eyes
To where dull roofs met duller skies.
Not for you the shuttered street,
The noonday heat,
The tourists sipping wine in smart cafes,
You liked the drabbest coffee bar,
Coffee and ash from your cigar
Mingling in a stain:
The world outside dissolved in rain.

Deft in analysis, your mind deployed
An acumen that quite destroyed
The devious stratagems of Freud,
And left annoyed
The faithful crew
Who still believed his theories true.
You were able to unite
Heidegger’s darkness, Ryle’s dry light,
Brought to Wittgenstein
A mind incomparably fine.

If poets are aged eagles at forty two
Let the old philosopher speak true
Wisdom’s owl an evening bird,
By fools unheard.
On death you’d steer
Between Lucretian calm, Larkin fear,
Larkin, ever sure
Death’s the worst we must endure,
Could never see
There are worse things than not to be.

‘Into the dark’ the poet said,
All humankind must join the dead,
Plato, Hume and Kant and Nietzsche
There is no creature
Whom death will spare
From the fate all mortals share,
The fate you did not fear,
Whether far, or whether near.
You’d long made your peace
With knowing that your life must cease.