By Ben Paff ’16, Web and Media Editor
Starting this October, there will be a Poetry Puzzle of the Month. The basics are pretty easy to understand; you go onto scrollonline.net, look for the latest Poetry Puzzle of the Month, and try to find the answer posed to you. This month, your task is to find what the coded lines at the end of the poem below mean. Most of the puzzles will be similar to this— I hope that by running these contests, more students will become interested in cryptography. You may be wondering, what’s the point? Do I win something?
Does self-respect and pride count? Hopefully, they count for something—but if they aren’t enough for you, you’re still in luck. When you think that you have solved the puzzle, you should email me at [email protected] both with your answer, and your process of how you found your answer. Once a correct response has been received, I will edit this post to say who solved it. At the end of the month, the solution will be posted. So having your name known to be the one who solved the puzzle isn’t enough for you, eh? That’s fine: will an additional prize of five big ones— not five thousand dollars, just five—help satiate your need for rewards? I guess we’ll find out.
The Poetry Puzzle of the Month for October, 2015 follows:
Many Messages
By Ben Paff
Death will come every day, so abort your tamed ways. Make haste!
Your muses aglow, you will find the necessity of your kills. Destroy every bit of your mind that sells to you the lack of confidence, and create more room for your imagination, your soul, to evolve.
Laugh with irony, for you will hear any joke like scratched vinyl. Your old eager wishes, desires, will all sound like broken records, playing on repeat.
Take swift haste in your mission. Your idols will never be the same; every one of them you will now see for what they really are- complete falsehoods. Lies, each one of them.
After you leave your older ways of life, you will find your niche on the new earth.
You will waken to the horns of the ivory heaven whilst lying on your hay bale bed. You will become eager, wishing to go wherever the sounds are coming from.
Twice, you will follow your heart, only to find nothing. Older souls go to the heavens with ease, whilst you can only imagine, painting what you see on your old, broken easel.
Much time will past, and your painting will be full of only ebony. The heavens have been ruined by the maker. The prize of truth is yours.
You rarely stray from your oasis of knowledge until you feel the lulls of sleep calling to you.
They bring you to a reedy inlet from the sea, newly formed as if it were made just now for your glory.
You walk alongside the shadows, and you feel a piece of yourself abandon you, leaving you empty. You are aided as you fall, the shadowy fingers, no, claws, seeming to push you down, as your body eases into rest.
Emrmo jmvxz giamo. Ribik nuspv oovsj. Hzdxw zzyij. Tymrh uoibw. Npjrv tswao.
Nposx xlolr sywyk. Rvill gljwv vbfww. Wyxec esgxc espbl. Doorz lvcyc dsugw.
Nlavi nrsry zfcgn sviqe bwbrx uymvx hiiik. Eepgv vmvgw bmnfw ilekv eswgv.
Image Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2013/08/quantum-cryptography-safe-again