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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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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The Words That I Have Not Written
for the words i have not written
i accept i have been a coward
the moment these words become transparent
in my mind, i always tell them gently
i have not the strength to write you
you have become subjects beyond
my power and please understand
the consequences of having to write
all of you: waiting to be printed and read
like the Sphinx and its riddle before
Oedipus, if i were to write all of you
i may be able to save a kingdom in distress
but please understand what happens to me next
for like Oedipus i may be compelled to pluck my eyes out
from my face
and i may roam the earth begging for forgiveness
throughout my life
because i have been blind by fate for all those years
writing you is honesty
and it is this honesty that may at the end kill me
and so
i am very sorry
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I Am A Man
in the morning of my life
i need four of you
at noon i only need two
in the night of my life
i will need three
now you must know me
i am the answer to the riddle
of the sphinx
i am man
when the night is gone
at dusk
i only need one.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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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Nature is a Sphinx...
Nature's a Sphinx. And her ordeal
Is all the more destructive to mankind
Because, perhaps, she has no riddle.
Nor did she ever have one.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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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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It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.
quote by Gregory Bateson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms.
quote by Gregory Bateson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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The Truth That Kills
the truth that kills
that which Oedipus brings me
i am the Sphinx
and i made the promise
the riddle
he solved it
he laid the truth before me
i am speechless
and i meet my fate
i am shattered
and he gets his due
he married his mother
he killed his father
he is faced with rage
too of his own truth
that blinds him
he removes his own eyes
from his sockets
he is ousted by the rage
of his own kingdom
the truth that kills
what freedom is there
what comfort
what annihilation
what grief eternal
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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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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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It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.
quote by Gregory Bateson
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Sphinx
The smartest of all
Was the lion woman Sphinx
Asking her riddle
Until one answered it right
She killed herself in despair
poem by Chelsey Ferner
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Well....
not to frustrate any of the horses
of Plato
i take both rides
first on the white one
and then the black
and both are happy
except perhaps myself
who got kicked on my ass
and now
i have to carry the chariot myself
and play the role of
Oedipus
in trying to unmask the reality of
the Sphinx.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Sphinx
Wanderer, behold Life's riddle writ in stone,
Fronting Eternity with lidless eyes;
Of all that is beneath the changing skies,
Immutably abiding and alone.
The handiwork of hands unseen, unknown,
When Pharaohs of immortal dynasties
Built Pyramids to brave the centuries,
Cheating Annihilation of her own.
The heart grows hushed before it. Nay, methinks
That Man, and all on which Man wastes his breath,
The World, and all the World inheriteth,
With infinite, inexorable links
Grappling the soul; that love, hate, birth and death
Dwindle to nothingness before thee--Sphinx.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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I'm The Devil
To turn your head
to 180 degree angle.
I'll turn me to devil,
From a square to triangle,
I must take my shape.
to change the inch of
your villainous workshop,
I shall run and hop!
You the soul sucker,
the exploiter of dreams,
I can be a monster,
or an Egyptian Sphinx.
Just a head of woman,
and lion's body I need,
to annihilate you man,
to put an end to bitter deed.
poem by Nilakshi Das
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How Do We Speak In Riddles?
how do we speak in riddles?
are we the modern versions of the sphinx
and where can oedipus stand and destroy
us at the crossroads?
come oedipus, slay us with your
wits
and incestuous destiny.
we are supposed not to look straight in the eye
we degenerate and shrink when we do so
we delineate a bit
not for any dramatics but it is simply the reason
why we are born this way,
writing in crooked lines
and burying some meanings on the sand
for the waves to caress and recover
with great patience and love,
we speak and we do not explain
they will say they will understand
and each shall make a stand that
though different each is right to a certain extent,
this is the life of
mystery a prism of colors contrasting
conceding condescending yet
true, well, maybe different when
filtered, light, shadows, images,
meanings, submeanings,
then extract, abstract, and what you find
ultimately from what is written above is
simply this:
riddle.
these are what we poets mean.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Shelia Loves Deeply
I want you to tell me that you need me-
is that so hard?
I want you to see me and not turn away.
I carve sometimes even a gentle glance
or better
a soft touch and softer voice saying
'are you ok? '
Rejection cuts like a dull knife
and kindness is a hurtful stranger
when not freely given and often
even if a substitute
for love
abandoned
Seeing you retreat inward
crushes my soul
and make me feel weak-
to weak to make it stop-
too weak to reach out-
and draw you out-
to weak to even cry sometimes.
No greater pain
than the pain of feeling unloved;
no greater din
than the din of silence.
No arm shorter than
the one which one
which wants to reach out
but is always too short from the lover in retreat
no hand ghostlier than the one which reaches out just after you have turned away.
So sex even is spiritless
yet it is better than
the cigarettes and beer
haze in which I sometimes find you
at three am TV snowing.
Worse, for any woman
or any man
beyond even all this
is the unmistakable sense
that you long for that something else
foraging with your eyes
to some stranger passer-by;
and I cannot re-direct
those longing looks
back my way
intoning in my soul;
'Don't you see
I am the one who loves you.'
We are the ghost ship
drifting upon the dead sea
and yet
curse me for the time being-
I'd rather drift in this maelstrom
with you
than anyone else;
so deep is my love.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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He is Sick (the monologue of a sick)
I am sick
weak
shouldn't you seek me?
shouldn't you accuse yourselves
when they refuse to see?
I am sick
and I cry
I am sick
and I scream
because I am sick
but even if I extirpate my throat
to show you the way I am cold
and alone
you wouldn't listen to me
Would you listen to me?
Do you hear me?
I am sick
Damn you fools
you can stop believing
if you need
but you cannot stop to believe
you are weak
weaker than me.
And you cannot stop believing
it is intriguing
it is crucial
yet not essential
and it is your fate
to let me die
it is your fate
to hunter your pride
and leave me sick
here, I lay sick
here, you made your God sick
my dear children, my perished humans
you hailed me here
where you left me
sick
and weak.
poem by Katerina Val
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