Wittgenstein In Wartime Poem by Sally Evans

Criss-cross in every direction
ran a lion who could speak
persuading the sensitive German,
'not not-p and not-not-p.'

He worked as a hospital porter,
the impeccable Cambridge man
with his mind on Godel's theorem
and the blackout all around.

With his mind on cause and effect, ownership,
sensation, identity,
Leibniz, physics and beautiful language,
and the blackout all around.

Ten thousand scholars pursued him,
for a touch, or a gift of a tree,
the handsome lean expatriate,
as he sang, 'not p-and-not p.'

Oh he was a fine philosopher
and famous may he be,
with the blackout all around him,
crying 'not p-and not-not-p.'


(1985)