The Laughter of the SphinxMichael Palmer's new book a collection in two parts, "The Laughter of the Sphinx" and "Still (a cantata or nada for Sister Satan)" contains 52 poems. The title poem begins "The laughter of the Sphinx caused my eyes to bleed" and haunts us with the ruin we are making of our world, even as Palmer revels in its incredible beauty. Such central tensions in The Laughter of the Sphinx between beauty and loss, love and death, motion and rest, knowledge and