Five Riddles for Psychoanalysts

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Five riddles for psychoanalysts

(In honor of the Sphynx whose code was cracked  When Sophocles and Freud the myth attacked)

                                                                  1.
    What looks up
    But sees below
    The surface 
    Of all human show,
    By wording all the things
    In flight
    From reason
    And the rhymes of night?

                                                                 2.

                                                  I run off
                                                  At the mouth
                                                  Into mind.
                                                  Like Aeneas
                                                  Under the known
                                                  I go
                                                  To find Anchises,
                                                  Word after word
                                                  My staircase;
                                                  Down, down
                                                  I go
                                                  Where speechless words
                                                  And spit and image
                                                  And mouth-milk
                                                  Nurse me
                                                  And only a dream
                                                  Can lead me home.

                                                             3.
                                                  In dark I see
                                                  What light of day
                                                  Has never known.
                                                  What I can be
                                                  There is no way
                                                  For you to own
                                                  Unless you ’gree
                                                  No coin to pay
                                                  And you’ll be shown
                                                  The past to see
                                                  In light of day
                                                  When dark has flown.

                                                              4.

                                                  Without a tooth
                                                  I bite again
                                                  Invisibly.
                                                  There is no truth
                                                  Or brawn of men
                                                  Can stay me;
                                                  For without ruth
                                                  I gnaw mind’s den
                                                  Invincibly.

                                                             5.

                                                  In me the dead
                                                  Can live again
                                                  In casket not
                                                  But in the head
                                                  Where thoughts of men
                                                  Are all begot.
                                                  When all is said
                                                  In now or then
                                                  I right the rot
                                                  By tears shed,
                                                  Heart pried open,
                                                  Nor life, nor death forgot.
Eugene Mahon August 2009