AWAKENING
by Dr. Mel Waldman
Dead City
waking up in the unreal hour
&
the shattered ghost of a ghost of a
breath-filled non-being
hides
out in the Grand Canyon on Montague Street
&
listens to phantom voices
&
dreams of a lost lacerated time
recalls
the vanishing rhyme of the pariah
when
the Beat poets adorned the city with
pretty/ugly iconoclastic words
a
panoramic canopy of
unholy truths
galloping across the forgotten pages of the past
never
to be revealed to
moribund
eyes
&
after a deep meditation
on
the metaphysics of art
&
the metamorphosis of the soul
the
phantom tastes a blood-red wine
of
divinity
inhaling
& ravishing the scent of madness
before
He saunters off to the Promenade
Sitting there
the broken ghost waits for Brooklyn’s
dying lights
&
after midnight
his
gold eyes gazing curiously
drill through the pitch-black darkness
&
rediscover
harrowing/heavenly visions
bursting forth
with
ferocious un-reality
coruscating gems
glowing
in
the invisible universe
on the verge of a chilling unveiling
a
beautiful madness
raw & uncanny filled with unholy truths
&
unfathomable revelations
spiraling into
inner space
&
crashing
into a metaphysical
mirror
a cornucopia of
paradoxes
a phantasmagoria of
faceless faces
gazing
ominously
screaming
voicelessly & in
the
stillness of
nowhere
giving birth
to
a
monstrous Awakening
Dr. Mel Waldman is a psychologist, poet,
and writer whose stories have appeared in numerous magazines including
HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, PULP METAL MAGAZINE, and AUDIENCE.
His poems have been widely published in magazines and books including A NEW
ULSTER, CLOCKWISE CAT, CRAB FAT LITERARY MAGAZINE, ESKIMO PIE, INDIANA VOICE
JOURNAL, LIQUID IMAGINATION, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, BRICKPLIGHT, SKIVE
MAGAZINE, ODDBALL MAGAZINE, PABLO LENNIS, POETRY PACIFIC, POETICA, RED FEZ,
SQUAWK BACK, SWEET ANNIE & SWEET PEA REVIEW, THE JEWISH LITERARY JOURNAL,
THE JEWISH PRESS, THE JERUSALEM POST, HOTMETAL PRESS, MAD SWIRL, HAGGARD &
HALLOO, ASCENT ASPIRATIONS, YELLOW MAMA, THE BITCHIN’ KITSCH, SOUL-LIT,
TWO DROPS OF INK, and NAMASTE FIJI: THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF
POETRY. A past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis, he
was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature and is the author of 11 books.