The Kiss of the Sphinx: Sixteen Poems

An unusual occurrence in the famous museum of NAM causes a visiting poet with a life and death experience. The most beautiful face of a Sphinx had come alive to lure him into her deadly embrace with a first kiss. The Sphinx, called Theiis, follows him wherever he flees to, burdening him with a riddle he must solve. The Sphinx has settled in the land of the Hellenes, being disgusted with the broken vows and long forgotten laws of the inhabitants. She has latched on to the poet with a second kiss, as she is convinced that he would solve the riddle of finding out her name and save the people from certain death. The poet travels to Santorini, where he meets a beautiful woman he falls in love with and she shares her love with him, she kisses him the third time, both beloved children of a goddess, but for the poet a great surprise. He does not know how many kisses will be left before she will devour him, as he has no clues yet to find out her name. She pulls the poet up to her pedestal and promises him immortality with a fourth kiss. The poet seeks help from his Muses, finding out about the source of his bloodline leading him to the island of his origins. He meets his love interest and confidante Muse, who promises him love and kisses. Will the fifth kiss turn out to belong to the Sphinx slipping into any pretty woman she wishes to be? For the sixth kiss, he takes a cue from a famous singer and there are no other idols as most had been forbidden due to cultural restraints, but he would never distrust Eros. Seduced by a woman he is disappointed in this intimate kiss. To heal his wounds the poet has kept solitary, but Margarita shouts for help. Zeni, the poet has to arrange for a key, Margarita’s hubby had thrown away, after he locked her up. This adventurous happening helps to heal his previous wounds with a seventh kiss. While spring comes with flowers and birdsong, he prepares to fly to Paris and meet Theiis, who offers him her love.
The poet compares his two lives, the quaint sunrise in Attika against the restless life in Africa of the South. He has not followed the whispering seductive voice of Theiis, but instead travelled to the place of spirituality. He invited his Muse to join him for an eighth kiss.
In the sanctuary of Delphi, his Muse sprung from the Sapphic stone wall embraces him and his ninth kiss makes the temple sing.
The tenth kiss of the Sphinx is the consummation of love’s promises and the human emotions are genuine. Perhaps this time the Sphinx had an urge to become completely human. For three years the poet had endured a solitary existence and seeks a reunion with the Sphinx, chancing to know her name. At a visit to sacred sites he meets two women welcoming him with a kiss, his eleventh, and who recall his times with his other wife he had been secretly married to. The twelve kiss has still to happen, as the poet is ageing and the fight for his existence bothers him. A thirteenth kiss is bestowed on him between the breasts of the shapely woman hygienist who cleans his teeth lovingly. His mind recalling the riddle of the oracle, he visits Delphi again and meets his love’s image he venerates with a fourteenth kiss, having an intuitive spark of the Sphinx’s name. His newfound love offers him her body and soul, but he has to find the island to kiss her and will this be his fifteenth kiss? The Sphinx is quietly dissolving as he said ‘Helias’, but kisses him finally before she disappears.