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

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poem by Greg Friedrich
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At The End You Must Become The Part Of Everyone

not all paths are the same
not everything are carved by tradition

somehow you deviate not because you want to deviate
it is just written in the lines of your palm and there is no way
that you can avoid it

oedipus rex is not an exception
what he wanted to avoid he instead entered
it is the tragedy that leads him precisely
to his own tragic fate

someone was once asking: who wants to be myself?
and no one answered quite well
most people find themselves unwanted and that is tragedy by itself

' i never wanted to be myself' the ugly creature in grief said it frankly
to himself who never answered him

you end up unsatisfied and resigned

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Intoxicating The Night - Am I Real To You?

There was lost a child unfound
Seated there and sitting
Sinking in the ground

Rise. As Pan in crimson anguish rise
Fulfil the prophecy of your eyes
Oedipus blind now
Blind now walking
Talking senseless rhythms
Intoxicating the night
Who shall lay by his daughter’s side?
Where now shall he hide?

Drink with me ambrosia,
Nectre fallen from the breast of Aphrodite
Slither with me
Shed your skin
Let me in
Allow yourself the time to heal
Feel me

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poem by David Lacey
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The Blue Mask

They tied his arms behind his back
To teach him how to swim
They put blood in his coffee
And milk in his gin
They stood over the soldier
In the midst of the squalor
There was war in his body
And it caused his brain to holler
Make the sacrifice
Mutilate my face
If you need someone to kill
Im a man without a will
Wash the razor in the rain
Let me luxuriate in pain
Please dont set me free
Death means a lot to me
The pain was lean and it made him scream
He knew he was alive
He put a pin through the nipples on his chest
He thought he was a saint

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song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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0312 Even the Best may stumble

Let’s suppose
you’ve bought or blagged
an invite to a buzzy West End party
after the football game, where
you’ll ‘mingle with the stars’

and when you get there, all glammed up
and wearing your Saturday best,
you glimpse, beyond a velvet, guarded rope,
the ‘stars’ you just won’t mingle with –

those ‘celebs’ with not too much to do
except to party and be photographed,
‘stars’ who’re hoping thus to burn the brighter
in the starry glitter of their combined glow…

while the hungry media, mingling in symbiosis,
poised to photograph,
smooze and click to elevate
these passing comets into myth

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Re-Jigue

A health warning on some possible pitfalls of psychology
Lead Vocal: Frankie Howerd
I was lonely and depressed
Having fled the family home
When I met an old acquaintance
I had only barely known
And I told her over tea
Of my worries and my woes
And a morbid fear of eating beans
In tightly fitting clothes
And she said psychoanalysis was just the thing for me
And she knew a mayfair analyst I really ought to see
So I went round to his rooms
And he saw me right away
Though he asked a sum of money I could ill afford to pay
But I lay down on the couch
By a bowl of flaccid flowers
And I talked and talked and talked and talked
For hours and hours and hours
And he told me tales of oedipus with great authority

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song performed by Alan Parsons Project
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The Defiance Of Eteocles

MESSENGER

Now at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief,
Thy proper mother's son, I will announce,
What fortune for this city, for himself,
With curses he invoketh:--on the walls
Ascending, heralded as king, to stand,
With paeans for their capture; then with thee
To fight, and either slaying near thee die,
Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive,
Requite in kind his proper banishment.
Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods
Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland,
With gracious eye to look upon his prayers.
A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears,
With twofold blazon riveted thereon,
For there a woman leads, with sober mien,
A mailed warrior, enchased in gold;
Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks:--
'This man I will restore, and he shall hold

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poem by Aeschylus
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Sects Therapy

Lead vocal: frankie howerd
I was lonely and depressed
Having fled the family home
When I met an old acquaintance
I had only barely known
And I told her over tea
Of my worries and my woes
And a morbid fear of eating beans
In tightly fitting clothes
And she said psychoanalysis was just the thing for me
And she knew a mayfair analyst I really ought to see
So I went round to his rooms
And he saw me right away
Though he asked a sum of money I could ill afford to pay
But I lay down on the couch
By a bowl of flaccid flowers
And I talked and talked and talked and talked
For hours and hours and hours
And he told me tales of oedipus with great authority
And he asked me if my mother

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song performed by Alan Parsons Project
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The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man

Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
Like Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the old and the famous -
that you overlooked.

The story of his life
is the story of mine.
I have one glass eye.
My nerves push against its painted surface

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poem by Anne Sexton
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The Scythians

You are but millions. Our unnumbered nations
Are as the sands upon the sounding shore.
We are the Scythians! We are the slit-eyed Asians!
Try to wage war with us-you'll try no more!

You've had whole centuries. We-a single hour.
Like serfs obedient to their feudal lord,
We've held the shield between two hostile powers-
Old Europe and the barbarous Mongol horde.

Your ancient forge has hammered down the ages,
Drowning the distant avalanche's roar.
Messina, Lisbon-these, you thought, were pages
In some strange book of legendary lore.

Full centuries long you've watched our Eastern lands,
Fished for our pearls and bartered them for grain;
Made mockery of us, while you laid your plans
And oiled your cannon for the great campaign.

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poem by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok
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Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of th

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.
Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi.
"O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose

Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die,
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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A Man Young And Old

I
First Love

THOUGH nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty's murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.
But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.
She smiled and that transfigured me
And left me but a lout,
Maundering here, and maundering there,
Emptier of thought
Than the heavenly circuit of its stars

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poem by William Butler Yeats
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Rapunzel

A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
The mentor
and the student
feed off each other.
Many a girl
had an old aunt
who locked her in the study
to keep the boys away.
They would play rummy
or lie on the couch
and touch and touch.
Old breast against young breast…
Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
come touch a copy of you
for I am at the mercy of rain,
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor
and the church spires have turned to stumps.

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poem by Anne Sexton
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Because I Don't Confront You

Because I don't confront you
doesn't mean this tree
doesn't know how to stand up to the wind.
If I bend like a river reed in a current
I'll still be here
long after the current has passed.
To the unenlightened it's inconceivable
there's nothing to win
because both opposites are empty.
Take empty from empty it's still empty.
No reason to put a gun to your head to check it out.
Just because you've got a trigger
like the first crescent of the moon
doesn't mean you have to pull it.
Three for three.
Blood and cartridges.
Strange lipstick.
But you're still banking on the one that's empty.
Those that have the power to hurt
but will do none.

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poem by Patrick White
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A Woman Young And Old

I
FATHER AND CHILD
SHE hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:

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poem by William Butler Yeats
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Meditation On Saviors

I
When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element
and smelt it like water,
Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a
little troublesome, a little terrible.

I pledged myself awhile ago not to seek refuge, neither in death
nor in a walled garden,
In lies nor gated loyalties, nor in the gates of contempt, that
easily lock the world out of doors.

Here on the rock it is great and beautiful, here on the foam-wet
granite sea-fang it is easy to praise
Life and water and the shining stones: but whose cattle are the
herds of the people that one should love them?

If they were yours, then you might take a cattle-breeder's
delight in the herds of the future. Not yours.
Where the power ends let love, before it sours to jealousy.
Leave the joys of government to Caesar.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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An Epistle Addressed To Sir Thomas Hanmer, On His Edition Of Shakspeare's Works

WHILE, born to bring the Muse's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays,
While nurs'd by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb;
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell.
With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's name.
Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd,
Unown'd by Science, and by years obscur'd;
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confess'd
A fixt despair in every tuneful breast.
Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When ling'ring frosts the ruin'd seats invade
Where Peace resorted, and the Graces play'd.

Each rising art by just gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil and age on age improves:
The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,

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poem by William Taylor Collins
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Trivia ; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London : Book III

Of Walking the Streets by Night.

O Trivia, goddess, leave these low abodes,
And traverse o'er the wide ethereal roads,
Celestial queen, put on thy robes of light,
Now Cynthia nam'd, fair regent of the night.
At sight of thee the villain sheaths his sword,
Nor scales the wall, to steal the wealthy hoard.
O may thy silver lamp from heaven's high bower
Direct my footsteps in the midnight hour!
When night first bids the twinkling stars appear,
Or with her cloudy vest enwraps the air,
Then swarms the busy street; with caution tread
Where the shop-windows falling threat thy head;
Now labourers home return, and join their strength
To bear the tottering plank, or ladder's length;
Still fix thy eyes intent upon the throng,
And as the passes open, wind along.
Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,
Whose straighten'd bounds encroach upon the Strand

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poem by John Gay
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Virgils Gnat

Wrong'd, yet not daring to expresse my paine,
To you (great Lord) the causer of my care,
In clowdie teares my case I thus complaine
Vnto yourselfe, that onely priuie are:
But if that any Oedipus vnware
Shall chaunce, through power of some diuining spright,
To reade the secrete of this riddle rare,
And know the purporte of my euill plight,
Let him rest pleased with his owne insight,
Ne further seeke to glose vpon the text:
For griefe enough it is to grieued wight
To feele his fault, and not be further vext.
But what so by my selfe may not be showen,
May by this Gnatts complaint be easily knowen.

We now haue playde (Augustus) wantonly,
Tuning our song vnto a tender Muse,
And like a cobweb weauing slenderly,
Haue onely playde: let thus much then excuse

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poem by Edmund Spenser
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Don Juan: Canto The Thirteenth

I now mean to be serious;--it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious.
A jest at Vice by Virtue's call'd a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,
Although when long a little apt to weary us;
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,
As an old temple dwindled to a column.

The Lady Adeline Amundeville
('Tis an old Norman name, and to be found
In pedigrees, by those who wander still
Along the last fields of that Gothic ground)
Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,
And beauteous, even where beauties most abound,
In Britain - which of course true patriots find
The goodliest soil of body and of mind.

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue;
I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best:

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poem by Byron
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