Love not the empress curve of your cheek,
The many-storied, empty ziggurat of belief,
The man-handled, baked brick built so high,
Your grotty thighs are pasted with all your lovers,
Your lacquered heart is glazed by luminous grief,
Head-bearer of broken vases as your crown,
Filled with dry dust from liquid stars.

I was having a cigarette
On top of a ziggurat
When I asked the Sphinx
To say what he thinks.
He said I’d know what he did
If I were in the pyramid.
But instead I had got
Myself on a ziggurat
So, he couldn’t say what
He truly thought he thought.

Then the Sphinx said to me
There will be lots of mystery
And I am certainly not joking
But you must give up smoking.
Because an important answer
Is that ziggurats cause cancer.

I don’t believe that is so.
I feel I must let you know
That there isn’t a chance
I mean, look how you dance
With your body all flat
In those tall pointy hats
Your elbows look broken
So, I know you are joking
And making an ancient pun,
You are just having fun
With a modern American.
I will do whatever I can
To try to catch the basic gist
Of whatever I have missed.

Then uttered the Sphinx
You logic is missing some links.
I’m older than the pyramids
And you are all just kids.
Now you know what the Sphinx thinks.