Oedipus

Oedipus was king of Thebis;
Jacarta was wife of Oedipus.

Oedipus was sincere in his duty.
‘While you suffer, none suffers more than I’,
With this, he resolved to save the city
By finding out the killer of King Lains.

Teiresias, a blind prophet, accused him,
‘You are the cursed polluter of this land.’
‘Terrible things indeed has the prophet spoken.
The killer of King Lains shall be banished’

The tension mounted, the truth revealed.
He was the son of King Lains he killed.
He married the king’s wife, Jacasta,
Without knowing that she was his mother.

Crippled with ignominy for the killing,
Oedipus preferred death but banished himself

[...] Read more

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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I don't admire Freud as much as some people do. Imagine Shakespeare being aware of the Oedipal complex when he wrote Hamlet. It would have been a disaster.

quote by Nathalie Sarraute
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Greek Tragedy (A Tale Of Horror)

1
He'd love her
and then the coldness
of marriage took love
away from him
and the coldness turned into suspicion
and then into an obsession:
and she was an inconvenience

he murdered her a Friday
night
suffocated her with her pillows
it was easy;
and he heard her whisper with her last breath:
'I'll have your eyes'
he cut her up in manageable parts,
and buried her below the floorboards
in the study

2

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poem by Raj Arumugam
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Ray Guns

Euclid has left the shaman island
Priory Shiloh illumines Copernicus
Newton battles

Time is an adjective
Solace the chalice of Solomon
Quantum Mechanics laughs
Dimensions dusky as elves
Fractal heartbeats
Summon all the neurons
Parameters of clones

Interact with the new man
Oedipal blue earth ravaged
186,000 miles per second is too slow
Savage world of ray guns

poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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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

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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,

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Illumined Pleasure

The Horizon seems distant
The sense of theatricality embraces whole
The dwarf monkey
The grasshopper still longing in my mind
Swarm of civilized ghosts with stones on their head
Moving in chaos

Oh God!
Do you hear the firing of gun on the stone

Fierce and Flinch of childhood cling in my coat
Oedipal jealousy reverberate
Nothing is in oblivion

Why you hide your face
Why you stay alone

Everything is normal
In the Freudian hole
The tiger

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poem by Raju Baruah
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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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A Poem For Us

this is the sign
at the entrance of the Oracle of
Delphi

Oedipus, he says, you must stop,
right here, in the middle of
an ignorance,
you know what happens next
when you know
finally the root cause
of this misery

You will finally be free
until you become
blinded
by the Truth

You chose your own
Destruction

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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First Class Illusion

The only true crime.
The one true appalling crime.
When living with; one status
demanding deluded woman.

Who thinks believes, she is first class personified?
Who models herself, as perfection pedestal attained?
Who perceives herself, as perfection style glorified?

Is not that she thinks believes,
with need condescending heart.
Her spouse plus everyone else,
are somehow seedy second class.

No absolute unforgivable sin?
Repetition oh too tiresome,
constantly kneading in your face fact;
is being tried condemned; constantly
as condescended to third class.

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poem by Terence George Craddock
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Heroic exploits told to a child

(after Daleen Enslin)

When I told you about the seven wonders
about the great sphinx,
how Oedipus elucidated those riddles,
how in roguery sly
Odysseus caught Troy with the wooden horse,
there was a lump in my throat
when I had forgotten to tell you about Jesus,
who saves the world - this you must know -

[Reference: "Ek vertel jou" (I tell you) by Daleen Enslin.]

poem by Gert Strydom
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Why are you dearer?

In vision my daughter resembles you.
Is it why that I take you near?

But a difference, I know you only as an adult.
Is it why that I hold you dear?

You are all, who made me a decade younger.
Is it why that I crave being near and dear?

Whatever it be, Oedipus complex or otherwise,
To remain nearer you is to me dearer.

While you depart
Way back I revert.
How to forget?
17.05.99, Palakkad

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Love in many phases

Love at first sight: many vouch for it.
Love at long sight: It exists between fans
and stardoms.
Love at short sight: Proximity brings about it.
Love at dim sight: It thrives in profession.
Love at random sight: It revamps in absentia.
Love at blind sight: It is the Oedipus complex.
Love at wrong sight: Incest relation.
Each has its own span of life with momentary pleasure.
29.05.2001, Berhampur

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Killing Zone

If you walk straight under the
shadow of moon, to the salt lake
death will blow a long whistle.
Everything was ruined in war of words.

There was no peace in the heart,
even after meditation, the mind
drove for the flesh, caressing neither
blameless womb nor Oedipus.

The dead forefathers goad the hypocrisy
till the blood spurts out from
the black navel of centuries
and the forgiveness stands naked.

poem by Satish Verma
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Goodbye Bohemia

It starts, back there, somewhere
In the childhood,
the Oedipal melange.
Where, I am always right.
And then it proceeds in search
of doctrines, always right.
Goodbye Bohemia and Weimar.

For those places are free,
and every view coheres to
shape Geography,
from freedom of thought,
to freedom of mind and person.

The Spirit is a private thing,
and privately attracts,
like mindedness.
There is a Society in freedom.

But moving on from being right

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poem by Bernard Kennedy
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Awakening

I am writing off all the symbols,
will not wait for the judgement
and cross the boundaries.

I am not you,
I am not him,
a blemished soul
it wants to be set free.

Conjugating fever at large
colliding, colliding with guts of needles.

Tasting ambrosia of pain,
oedipus asking for another name.

I am offloading the ancient guilt
give me some time.

I do not want any clouds to follow me,
my words are scented with streaks of blood

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poem by Satish Verma
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Mercurial Surge

Red-hot blood rushing
Throbbing and flushing
Through the arteries and veins
Around the flesh and bones
Piercing the heart, kidneys and genitals
Of a body made-up of mere clay

Life sings an unheard-poignant melody
May be written by the Oedipus
In the last days of his cursed life

Hormones, neurotransmitters and cytokines
All mixing with the lyrics
Of that unknown-ancient ballad
Psychedelic trances, visual hallucinations
And cocaine bugs

All pining for more
Mercurial surge

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poem by Dr Kamran Haider Bukhari
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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

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poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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From The 'Antigone

Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;

Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.

Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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0149 Donald Rumsfeld Meets Descartes

which is why the Greeks
trudged off to Delphi
to find out
if 'Know Thyself'
was consumer-friendly or
as sore-footed a path
as Oedipus trod

and if you think this
doesn't concern you personally
let me ask you about a 'known'
that you know, but don't know
that you know
- or have forgotten...

that moment in childhood
that we've forgotten that we remember
when just for a moment, time stood still
and we knew we knew something
with absolute certainty

[...] Read more

poem by Michael Shepherd
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