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Ecliptic Arguments Haunt Water Erosion Sphinx
mysterious Sphinx stretches
paws out deep into desert sands
watching stars span satin ages
mystery tranquility peacefully
Sphinx lies timeless built exactly
on east-west axis gaze perfectly
sun greeting equinoctial marker
set due east of Giza necropolis
Sphinx red rising sun illuminates
summer solstice latitude Gaza
sun rises 28 degrees north of east
winter solstice at latitude Gaza
sun rises 28 degrees south of east
at equinoxes sun always rises due east
an accurate reference to cardinal
direction high precision design gaze set
due east Sphinx is an equinoctial marker
targets exact position of sunrise at dawn
ancient astronomers built Sphinx when
2500BC focused upon zodiacal constellation
Taurus houses sun on spring equinox
yet Sphinx is built as significant form leonine
in 10,500 BC our sun rises into Leo constellation
ecliptic arguments haunt water erosion sphinx
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Two Riddles. -- 1710
Sphinx was a monster that would eat
Whatever stranger she could get,
Unless his ready wit disclosed
The subtile riddle she proposed.
OEdipus was resolved to go
And try what strength of parts would do;
Says Sphinx, on this depends your fate;
Tell me what animal is that
Which has four feet at morning bright,
Has two at noon, and three at night?
'Tis Man, said he, who, weak by nature,
At first creeps, like his fellow-creature,
Upon all four; as years accrue,
With sturdy steps he walks on two;
In age at length grows weak and sick,
For his third leg adopts the stick.
Now, in your turn, 'tis just, methinks,
You should resolve me, Madam Sphinx,
What greater stranger yet is he
Who has four legs, then two, then three;
Then loses one, then gets two more,
And runs away at last on four?
poem by Matthew Prior
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how do you know that God is a myth?
a myth
like the sphinx
and the phoenix
as the story goes
on and on
somehow
there was this death
at the end
and then immortality
in the same way
that my God
died and lived
forever
killing a myth
can be another myth
like asking how do you kill a myth
that does not exist?
when you finally give the correct answer
about our humanity
the sphinx gets killed.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Solo Flights
Woke up to the scary fact that I have no
book to read, after completing household
chores ran off to Tall Stories, second-hand
bookstore, got hold of "From Atlantis to the
Sphinx" by Colin Wilson, left on a quest for
ancient wisdom led by John Anthony West
assisted by Robert Schoch, palaeontologist,
travelling to rain-weathered Sphinx, studying
the Piri Reis Map detailing Antarctica before
ice covered everything; my loved ones mes-
merised watching great rugby wars on TV -
while I'm taking solo flights to pre-history…
"From Atlantis to the Sphinx" by Colin Wilson,
Virgin Books 2000
pp 1-108
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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Women are one of the Almighty's enigmas to prove to men that He knows more than they do.
quote by Ellen Glasgow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Never tell a man you can read him through and through most people prefer to be thought enigmas.
quote by Marchioness Townsend
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Never tell a man you can read him through and through; most people prefer to be thought enigmas.
quote by Marchioness Townsend
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love does not die of natural death, but of human indifference.
aphorism by Camelia Oprița from The enigmas of the soul (November 2019), translated by Camelia Opriţa
Submitted by Alexander
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Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.
quote by Honore de Balzac
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.
quote by James Joyce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's mortality.
quote by James Joyce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I believe that happiness is nothing but a chimera, a state of mind that man cultivates, clinging to the image of the future.
Camelia Oprița in The enigmas of the soul (November 2017)
Submitted by Alexander
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She's Saving Me
we were sitting round a dying fire
somebody lit incense
somebody lit a cigarette
and passed a bottle around
it was just strawberry season
backbreaking pickers in the patches
everythings burning down to ashes
and down to the ground
she's saving me
i don't even think she knows it
it's a strange way to show it as distant as
last nights dream unravels
she's saving me
i'm a very lost soul
i was born with a hole in my heart
the size of my land locked travels
i try to put it aside
but it's too much bigger than me
there's a big brown hawk in the tree
lighting and leaving
and there's tea leaves tossing
heads up pennies in my pocket
dead star like a rocket
the arc of my grieving
she's saving me
i don't even think she knows it
its a strange way to show it
as distant as last nights dream unravels
she's saving me
i'm a very lost soul
i was born with a hole in my heart
the size of my land locked travels
the sky pours out biblical rain
then days so still the beauty gives you pain
the heatwave kills the green
and she remains unseen
but colors up my dreams
with all things blooming
this is not all there is
it's not a kingdom
it's not an angry god
it feels like her
it feels like no fear
it feels like no doubt
it feels like inside out
the ashes stir
she's saving me
i don't even think she knows it
such a strange way to show it as distant as
last nights dream unravels
she's saving me
i'm a very lost soul
i was born with a hole in my heart
the size of my land locked travels
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An Ode to the Sphinx
2500 years after Oedipus and the Sphinx
was written
I sit in my English class
studying her riddle
as the silverfish crawls
and the fruit flies fly
a teenager, I think
no- twelve years old perhaps
we live in the toughest time
we grow; we are no longer a child
with neon signs lighting the streets
the roar of cars and trucks from city
to town and back
a man playing golf on the moon
we grow
we need to get used to our body
there's new power, new responsibilities
never known before, and we grow
we reek of adolescent growth
and in our premature fear
we fight
we fuel our wars with hatred
hatred from fear
still learning our place
not quite child- not quite adult
and the silverfish crawls
and the fruit flies fly
we fight back
when we are shown love
we cower, hold back
trying to figure out what is right
entering the world with no parent
communism
monarchy
democracy
d ictatorship
nuclear war
bombing the head, the torso, the feet
meanwhile the silverfish crawls
and the fruit flies fly
we discover ourselves in time
and now- 2500 years later
the Sphinx returns with a new riddle
The Sphinx is a girl
The Sphinx is a girl
the test for centuries
failed and failed again
this time aiming for the heart
stabbing, crushing, stomping
the fall of dynasties,
emperors,
kings,
and power
she once again seizes control
the toughest enemy...
the loneliness! that's the riddle!
twisted with fear and hope
failed and failed again
the Sphinx is a girl
lost, wandering and waiting
waiting again
waiting
and the silverfish crawls
poem by Greg Friedrich
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I Can Write About It, I Can't Write Some More
that is the riddle of the sphinx,
but i will make sure you cannot figure it out
that your answer shall never be right,
for i am the sphinx,
and i still do not want to die.
tell me all the lies so i may live some more.
i will keep this answer till the last breath of my life.
you shall never know it.
be human still, for i am half lion half bird sitting on a hill
challenging those that pass before me
killing them without pity
you are the chosen one to kill me
with an answer
you are the answer but you are blind still
and too dumb
for not loving me and so i live still
perhaps forever,
for i am attuned to this pain
of loving not
and truly not loving still
you, my secret, my truth, my death.
i live, and only through lies, i live and only through your indifference
you must not have the wit
you must never learn to love
for when this happens
i shall be no more.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Poets of the Shadows
Peripatetic waters a volatile knife
Prodigy of violent words
Poetry of silk madness
Caustic like a mad river
Rimbaud shelters the tragic
A night of hallucinations
Dark fame like a snake
No respite for Verlaine
Some deny the dark paths
Some act like fields of lilies
We are the satyr man
We are the sphinx of deserts
Split and gnarled with thorns
Wrestling with lions of lust
Some embrace the edge
Dark cloaks thick eye make up
Joyce cryptic as a Gaelic cemetery
New language rises from the crucible
War shatters lilies of the enlightenment
Nietzsche dark as post modernism
Welcome to the coming inquisition
Orwell and Huxley tell us of utopia
Poets without rhymes on steeds of chaos
Steppenwolf unravels Siddartha
Heroes become dusky paint
Easel of vociferous talent
Other sides of human night
Red moons lost in prose
Baudelaire and a salacious whore
The works of Poe in French
Sarte inspired by dank streetlamps
Mortality of the avant-garde
Poets of the shadows croon
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Who told you that you come into the world to be happy? When in fact happiness is inside the soul that has gained the right to life and light.
Camelia Oprița in The enigmas of the soul
Submitted by Camelia Oprița
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By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analysing the observations that I have made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics, Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.
quote by M.C. Escher
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analysing the observations that I have made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics, Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.
quote by M.C. Escher
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Friend How Can You Ever Trace Me In That Labyrinth?
in that labyrinth once you saw me as the minotaur
i went into hiding and changed my form
i became a faun, and when you found me with my horn and tail
and lots of hair and goat-like musk, i changed again
into another mythological animal,
a dragon spitting fire,
a centaur, a snake with eight heads,
a dinosaur, a sphinx,
a lion, an eagle,
whatever form i assumed, you still find me,
and sometimes i wonder how have you been following me
through and through in this labyrinths of my hiding
and concealment in masks and names
myriad, escapes and exits,
despite all these, you still find me.
i know one thing, but i will not tell you.
The riddle of the Sphinx
you must know, if solved, crumbles my existence
into ash,
or like a leaf, under too much scorching,
crumples me into dusts.
Please do not tell me the answer.
Make me live a little longer inside your innocence.
Let the chaos stay.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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