Yellow Mama Archives

Dr. Mel Waldman
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Bloody Mary

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman

 

 

Mary Jones, the owner of the Bloody Mary liquor store in the South Bronx, stood almost six feet tall and weighed 350 pounds. Women gossiped about the full-figured gal and labeled her grotesque and bestial. But most men claimed she had the prettiest face in the borough.

 

Mary had a few sidelines—dealing drugs and running an after-hours S & M club. Most folks feared her. But secretly, Bloody Mary loved Tommy the Toy, her midget lover and accountant.

 

Tonight, the Bloods had ordered a hit on the big mama, initiation rites for a wannabe Blood.

 

At 11, Tommy dozed off in the back room.

 

At midnight, Harvey Stone, Joe the Beast, and Jimmy the Speed Freak arrived.

 

At 12:05, a skinny kid rushed into the store brandishing a .38.

 

“What the fuck?” Joe the Beast yelled, pulling out a large piece.

 

The kid blew his head off.

 

Jimmy screamed. Harvey fainted. He killed them, too.

 

Mary took out her .45 Magnum and shot the kid exactly when he blasted her.

 

Later, Tommy woke up, kissed Mary’s corpse, took the money, and sauntered off.

THE GIRL FROM PLANET XES

 

 

By Dr. Mel Waldman

 

 

The pencil-thin girl from Planet XES came into my office six months ago for an emergency session. With protruding bones and dark brown eyes, the ghostly little thing stood about five feet tall.

 

“Dr. Jacob Weiss referred me to you.”

 

“How is my former colleague?”

 

The girl stared blankly at me.

 

“Did he give you a referral letter?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, what seems to be the problem?”

 

“I just returned from Planet XES.”

 

“Planet XES?”

 

“Yeah. The motherfuckers kidnapped and transported me there. They XESED my brain, body, and soul.”

 

It took her forever to tell me she had discovered a glowing object in a corner of her bedroom. When she gazed at the minuscule thing, she blanked out and woke up on Planet XES.

 

“After they XESED me, they left me alone in a glittering white sphere. The burning light blinded me. And suddenly I was home again.”

 

I made a couple calls yesterday. Found out Dr. Weiss vanished a year ago.

 

Now, I sit with the girl. Her freaky eyes glow fiercely. They XES me, take me there, enslave me. Planet XES is real.

 

“Who are you, MOTHER-XESER?”

 

 

I look into her hellfire eyes and burn.

 

 

 

REVOLUTION IN THE MADHOUSE

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman

 

 

 

In a jabberwocky universe, you can pull it off, switch places or sneak in and hang out, on the inside. Why not?

 

Indeed, in antediluvian Shrink-land, other explorers conducted secret experiments on psyche wards, tricked the staff, and discovered weird truths, the color of gunmetal, which blew the minds of the uptight status quo bureaucrats.

 

Now, I’m intoxicated with this thrilling notion of a one-day or one-week revolution in the madhouse, more breathtaking and exciting than a pulchritudinous femme fatale.

 

My revolution isn’t crimson or bloody red; it’s the color of creamy white gardenias or pale pink azaleas, or perhaps, yellow or white daffodils; my revolution is not a bomb or volcanic explosion; it’s not about deadly force or any other kind of power; my revolution is soft and curious, and sweet as an old-fashioned vanilla malted and a slice of creamy cheesecake with whipped cream; and in a jabberwocky universe, it’s about empathy, compassion, and love—the ultimate inner space exploration.

 

But here, in the rational universe, I need the approval of the Committee (that’s a bummer), and an experimental design (perhaps, you could help me work out the kinks).

 

And, if all goes well (and I drill a hole through the brick-red wall of resistance and cut the thick red tape), I will feast on infinite out-of-the-box ideas, high on knowledge; but if not, in a jabberwocky universe, I can pull it off, alone.

 

 

 

COMMENCEMENT DAY

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

The end was the beginning, and it arrived in the summer of ’65, for time is a cannibal that devoured Mother, a tiny woman clutching a small ration of life that remained in the quiet ruins of that seething apocalyptic day.

 

Her gold eyes perched on olive skin gazed at us as she lay in bed. She held a fake plastic cigarette in her minuscule hand, I imagine. Or was she caressing Father’s trembling hands?

 

An oxygen tank stood tall on the night table, like a centurion guarding a moribund prisoner. Outside our home, a womb of death, Brooklyn overflowed with Eros, the life force.

 

We watched her gasp for air, black out, wake up, open her celestial eyes, and whisper, “I thought I was dying.” And then she passed away, quietly, and forever.

 

In that cutting moment, I, too, crossed an invisible boundary, and began a long, unfathomable journey.






VANISHING MAN

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman 

 

 

 

I watched the old man vanish, when he came to stay with me after his third wife kicked him out. He flew in from Florida.

 

Sometimes he disappeared in the middle of a conversation, or when he was mute and meandered around my small apartment, naked and confused.

 

On occasion, he lost control and suddenly, like a Hemingway bull, he looked ready to charge. But he didn’t.

 

His dark brown eyes glared at me. He roared and shrieked and when his body shook, I hugged his fragile torso and whispered, “Dad, I love you.”

 

The little man grew a big fat smile and proudly displayed his glittering gold tooth.

 

I remember our time together. He often vanished, but always reappeared, until he left for Florida, and his wife, and destiny.

 

She shipped him off to a nursing home where his merciless disease ate his mutilated brain. And when I spoke to him long distance, he whispered, “Yes, no, yes, no,” until he vanished forever.

 

On empty nights, I sometimes gaze into my meandrous mind, a broken road with scattered potholes of forgetfulness, and mutter,

 

“Will I vanish too?”


 

 

 

AN UNHOLY VISION:

 

THE TRANSVERBERATION OF THE INVISIBLE MAN

 

 

By Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

After midnight, the invisible man saunters along Ocean Parkway in sidereal time, the empty wasteland of his barren pitted face pointing upward, his dead eyes whirling around the Heavens & back to Earth, & drilling through the darkness as he slowly approaches Coney Island, a distant dream & a vanishing point in his moribund mind;

 

& when he arrives at the swirling center of the unholy night, he drifts toward the Coney Island Boardwalk & slithers beneath its low ceiling, lies in the seething swirling sand of the sultry August night, a sweet phantasmagoria, & falls into a deep abysmal sleep;

 

& suddenly, an unholy vision sweeps across his dissolving brain cells, & trapped in inner space, he witnesses the transverberation of the invisible man—the piercing stabbing death of his fragile diaphanous flesh;

 

& perched on the phantom stars of his multilayered nightmare, he shrieks hellfire as a frozen icicle burns & slashes his heart until he is still forever in an unfathomable landscape beyond Space & Time;

 

& tomorrow, after the tempest, his mutilated corpse lies buried in the deep snow of winter in the sweeping whiteness of Coney Island beneath the cold barren boardwalk for the invisible man has passed through the labyrinth of final dreams & discovered the soothing heat of summer in sweet phantasmagoria, an eerie place & last exit before a chilling unreality of unending stillness





LADY XES


by Dr. Mel Waldman   


She struts across Mallory Square like a glamorous Hollywood movie star, a deliciously divine diva walking the red carpet.


Yet she does not wear high heels, no stilettos tonight, in Key West, no see-through gown, diaphanous and devastating, with long slits revealing lovely legs.


Her sensuous buttocks swing and sway and sashay in tight and torn blue jeans, and her tiny feet move inside soothing soft-blue slip-ons, Proenza Schouler espadrilles.


& now, in a low-cut red T-shirt that purrs, XES ROCKS, she enters the dock, mystical and magical, and watches weird performers, freaky and fantastic.


& all wandering eyes find her, for she is Lady XES, femme fatale of the 21st century, Lady XES from Planet XES-XESY, XESUAL, and mother XESer of the unfathomable universe, here on earth to be with us,


& vanish every night with the sinking red sun into the eerie sea and the distant horizon, dying in the Gulf of Mexico, resurrected in the darkness, and returning tomorrow, perhaps, to XES us for eternity



THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MY IMAGINARY COFFIN

by Dr. Mel Waldman   

 

Come

with me

into my coffin,

my imaginary coffin,

a voice within a dream whispers,

then swirls into a sphere of turquoise light

&

vanishes.

&

after, I awaken,

inside a wooden coffin,

ensconced in a whirling dream, a frostbitten

dream of winter, within an ocean of dreams;

&

looking up,

at the cold wood covered with the flowing chill

of darkness, my frozen eyes observe the metamorphosis

of my imaginary coffin, nestled in a fierce phantasmagoria,

where I am empty inside this eerie emptiness, & still, like the

silenced dead;

&

through the blinding black hole I watch a frightening alchemy—

wooden coffin becoming gold & glowing in the House of Non-Existence,

then flowing into a turquoise light & vanishing, becoming raw dust, but resurrected

in the bowels of the earth, & soon, a nameless weapon of glory, drills through the foul

earth, rises furiously toward the snow-covered Heavens, explodes & obliterates the cosmos,

&

inside this supernatural coffin, my Post-Apocalyptic home,

I lie,

alone,

for eternity,

in a locked box,

nothing

above,

or

beyond,

only

the

monstrous

Void




A DEATH BEFORE DEATH

 

IN

 

THE DEEP SNOW OF ALZHEIMER’S

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman

 

 

My father passed through a black hole and disappeared. I waited for his return.

 

When the mind dies, it sleeps in a frozen coffin.

 

Buried in the deep snow, and tasting flakes of non-existence, as real as the wet, whirling beasts in his vanishing brain cells, he suffered a death before death.

 

Strangers gazed at him and saw a peek-a-boo man, clothed in a shroud of non-identity, a ghostly veil of human emptiness.

 

I saw a man named Father.

 

I watched him vanish into a shattered time capsule of random, remote yesterdays, swaddled in a strait jacket of unbearable restraint.

 

I witnessed his death before death.

 

When the mind dies, it hides in the deep snow.

 

He disappeared in front of me, his dark, vacant eyes far away, perched in nowhere.

 

My soul-severed eyes darted and flitted back and forth, between the mutilated spaces that connected us. I reached out to his moribund mind-spirit.

 

I could not save him.

 

When the mind dies, it dangles between nowhere and nowhere.

 

Before his final death, a private snowstorm swept mercilessly across the wasteland of his mind. The blizzard covered his battered brain, almost obliterated it.

 

Yet sometimes, he was reborn for a few seconds or minutes, resurrected by chance neural connections.

 

We’d say hello.  Instinctively, he grew a big fat smile, revealing his precious gold teeth.  His eyes were real until they became vacant again.

 

I discovered death in his dark brown eyes.

 

In his heyday, he was a fierce, ferocious man who did not know how to love or be loved.  We raged against each other.  But at the end of his fragile life, I loved him fully, forgave his flaws and sins, and forgave my own.

 

I witnessed his horrific death before death.

 

Strangers saw a peek-a-boo man. I saw a man called Father.



A DEATH IN OLD BROOKLYN

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

Old Brooklyn is dead,

drifting

in

inner space,

lost

&

lingering

in

antediluvian

brain cells

&

dangling

between

shattered

synapses

too,

 

Old Brooklyn is dead,

&

I

mourn

for

the

soothing snow

of

my

mythological childhood,

a

celestial landscape

in

constant flux

&

recreation;

 

I

mourn

interminably

for

the

boy-dreamer

I

once

was,

covered

in

dead time

in

the

coffin of the past;

 

I

mourn

for

him

&

this

lost spirit-love

inside

me,

&

the

dream-shards

dangling

in

still life

&

the

scattered sparks

of

divinity

frozen

in

the

seething fires-

the porphyry

of

burning time,

&

merciful

angels

suspended

in

mid-air

before

the

unending

freedom journey;

 

&

I

mourn incessantly

for

eleemosynary

thoughts

merging

with

celestial visions

of

the

child;

 

Yes,

I

mourn

for

so much-

too much

of

my

life

used

&

spent

&

buried

in

the

death-box

behind

me,

a

tomb

of

everlasting vastness

&

longing,

the

transverberation

of

my

shrinking spirit;

 

I

mourn

unendurably,

&

sometimes,

after

a

preternatural sunset,

in

sidereal

time,

beneath

the

mystical stars,

I

gaze

backwards

into

the

reconstructed landscape

&

resurrect

the boy

&

the

soothing snow

&

my

mythic childhood

within

a

holy

ring

of

purple-red stones,

a

prophetic

porphyry

of

fugitive dreams,

 

&

a death in Old Brooklyn

rushing

away

from

me

in

frozen

time,

here

&

now,

everywhere

&

nowhere,

never

touching

tomorrow



BLESSINGS BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman 

 

 

The snow falls interminably.

 

“Come now with me, into the holy house. It is time to receive the blessings before the Apocalypse.”

 

But the others rush off, vanishing in the rolling hills. & so, I enter, alone, and when the holy man speaks, his sweet voice is a zephyr brushing against my olive skin, and his words are a river of revelations, holy susurrations that flow into me and soothe my shattered spirit, a kaleidoscope of crippled butterflies.

 

“Welcome, fellow travelers of the unfathomable universe, and bless you.”

 

He speaks to a chimerical throng of believers, for I am alone, with him, and a sphere of holy light encircles me.

 

“After life flows into death . . . and death feeds the earth . . . beyond the ruins . . . is the ferocious mystery . . . the ineffable miracle of resurrection and . . .”

 

My gold eyes rush to the mammoth window to my left, swallow the deep snow that covers the moribund earth and I say goodbye to my life and all that I have loved and the world outside. It is time to pray and hide beneath the canopy of the prophet’s visions.

 

Ensconced in the vastness of his words, and this holy place & time, nestled in a cocoon of revelations & silence, I close my eyes and wait for the Apocalypse, and after, a swarm of monarchs and mourning cloaks may rise from the ruins and soar, or perhaps, nothing, not even traces of our dreams, shall exist to reveal who and what we were or why we did not hear or heed, in time, the deafening words of the prophecy



 

 

 






crimsonface.jpg
Art by Mike Kerins Š 2016

CRIMSON FACE

 

 

Dr. Mel Waldman

 

Look closely at my sweet-smelling face. Come close now. Stop! And smell the roses.

 

What cologne am I wearing? Can you guess? I am the Garden of Eden. Take a deep breath and inhale the seductive scent I wear. Does it belong to Adam, Eve, or the snake? Is it Eternity, or Eros, or the foul suffocative smell of Thanatos?

 

Come close now. Beneath the sundry masks I wear, do you see the real me?

 

Touch my face—the soft, smooth skin. Remove my masks. Peel them off, if you dare, and discover the crimson face—the bloody cauldron of rage.

 

Now, do you know who I am? Or are you confused by my disarming smile, my gentle demeanor, and my melodious voice?

 

Come closer into my arms, look up—into my cannibalistic eyes and see who I really am and let your mind and heart dissolve in a long eternal kiss while the killer inside me, the beast with the crimson face, caresses and strangles you to death.

 

 

 

MY POEM,

 

MY PRAYER

 

 

By Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 (on reading Jack Kerouac’s poem-Hymn)

 

 

After dark,

in the deep of the night

 

I

drink the stars outside my Brooklyn home

 

&

gazing upward at the glorious unfathomable creations,

 

I

turn inward,

 

look into the mirror of my meandering mind

&

 

rushing slowly

into inner space,

 

I

pray to our unknowable Source,

 

bathe

in the beautiful darkness & the omniscient silence,

 

enter

the Oneness,

 

&

I pray until my prayer blesses me with creation

 

&

a turquoise butterfly appears & swirls around my brainwaves

&

in a poignant moment, perhaps, in the everflowing circle of the night

 

or

in the deep silence of the dawn, when crepuscular insects awaken with me,

 

I

write my poem, my prayer

 

&

on the blank page of metaphysical creation, in my minuscule blank book,

 

I

scribble my holy creation—my hymn to Brooklyn & to the majestic universe

 

of

celestial conundrums that surround it

 

&

my words weep the sadness & joy of prayer

 

&

sing a cornucopia of sweeping emotions

 

in

the vastness where I shed the skin of loss

 

as

I create

 

&

remember the Coney Island of my youth,

 

the whirling wonderland by the sea,

where we gathered—

 

&

Mother, Father, Sister, & I

 

devoured

Nathan’s frankfurters & French fries & the soothing innocence of our time

 

&

we believed in something beautiful transcendent & real

 

 

as

lovely as this poem, this prayer

 

&

as real as the invisible landscape of boundless love

 

where

Mother& Father live now ensconced in my beauty

 

in

the mansion of my mind on the Coney Island pier of Yesterday,

 

gazing

at the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean & the swirling rhapsody

 

of

the Coney Island rides,

 

&

smiling majestically at me in their Seats to Heaven

 

while

I stroll along the wooden Boardwalk & sing songs of love

 

&

scribble words of glory in the deep silence of creation

 

until

my poem, my prayer comes forth,

 

out

of nothingness,

 

the omnipotent music

of

 

the Source

 

 

 

SILENCE,

 

DEEP SILENCE

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

(on reading Stefan Brecht’s poem “Silence”)

 

 

Silence,

deep silence

 

inside

the swirl

 

&

falling into a fallen divinity

 

&

the stone speaks silence

 

&

I listen

 

&

drift into visions of

 

an old man with a Charlie Chaplin moustache

dives into the river of silence

 

caresses

a little lady glowing with the opalescent light of love

 

&

lovelier than Greta Garbo

 

&

I weep silence

 

swallow

phantom voices

Mother’s

otherworldly whispers celestial softness brushing against my olive skin

 

&

Father’s

 

ferocious gorgeous grin gold tooth glittering after dark

rushes across the ruins of silence reaches me growls love

 

&

gallops off through inner space

 

AWAY                                                                                  FAR  AWAY

 

&

I drink the river of despair

 

&

drown in the deep silence of the apocalypse

 

&

vanish in the mournful flood of loss

 

as

I kiss & taste the succulent lips of silence

 

&

long for redemption,

 

perhaps,

the Queen of Rebirth,

 

a fallen divinity

asleep in the vastness where the stone speaks silence

 

waiting

for me to awaken her

 

waiting

for us to save each other

 

in

the deep silence



THE SUDDEN DEATH

 

OF

 

MY UNKNOWABLE FATHER

 

LONG AGO

 

IN

 

LOST TIME,

 

A

 

STRANGER

 

IN

 

THE HOUSE OF MY SOUL

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

(on reading Joanne Kyger’s poem “My Father Died This Spring”)

 

 

Long ago,

inside the labyrinth of lost time, my unknowable father, a faraway man, distant in life

 

&

shrouded in secrets, died suddenly in a Florida nursing home, a ghost of a vanishing man,

 

shriveled up & emptied of thought, gazing mindlessly at a moribund TV & a soporific soap opera in the sultry dayroom decades ago, his dark brown eyes fixed on random

 

images

floating in raw nothingness on a Spring day

 

until

the old phantom, having suffered the 1st Death of No-Mind, brainwaves dissolving

 

inside

the wasteland of the Deep Snow,

 

slumped over in his rickety chair & slipped off into the otherworldly Void that swallows all life-the nowhere-hole of oblivion for those forever bereft of the cosmic breath of life

 

&

banished from earth & our human flow—the furious beautiful rivers & oceans of Eros.

 

Looking back

through a swirling oval darkness, my weary eyes locked shut,

 

I

sit within a circle of silence & plummet into my private space & a mournful past;

 

but

soon, I hear the cutting voice of an interloper, the hallucinatory soliloquy of the Beat Poet

 

Joanne Kyger

slicing the seething silence, speaking of her dead father,

 

confessing,

“You can’t say he wasn’t strange and difficult.”

 

I

listen to her poignant words again & again, orange-red flames of mournful music that fill

 

my emptiness until her haunting voice melts in the merciless fire, becoming a murmur-whisper-susurration, & vanishing in the abyss.

 

After,

I am alone, once more—terribly alone.

 

Father,

my unknowable father, you’ve passed through the sacred wormhole into the beyond

 

&

the lost landscape of eternity.

 

Now,

tell me who you are & I shall discover who I am.

 

Father,

you are a stranger in the House of My Soul. Yet I welcome you in. Come now, come into

 

my home. Father, my unknowable father, you are undecipherable & unfathomable like the universe & the Source of all life. I am too. So come now, from far away, come into

 

my home, & let us search together for our truth & let us love

 

 

 







beautifulchaos.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2017

A

 

BEAUTIFUL CHAOS


 by Dr. Mel Waldman  


  

Follow me


into a beautiful chaos


 in


the flowing rear space


 lit up


with the fire of efflorescence.

 

Follow me.


  &


the clock explodes


 within


the whirling yellow-orange labyrinth of unreality


 &


still Rabbi Silverman teaches Torah at a corner table.


 Nearby,


I read Yehoshua November’s poem “Prayer”


 &


my phantom soul flows up & down the Tree of Life


 &


glows with otherworldly phosphorescence


 &


a few feet away,


  Mike,


my funny Egyptian Muslim friend,


 unleashes


the swirling music of Saturday Night Fever on his smart cell phone


 &


he & the old timers of Dunkin’ Donuts dance with John Travolta & Karen Lynn Gorney

 

&


we caress the past with the Bee Gees & Tavares,


 free


in our little Tower of Babel


 for


this is our world


 beyond


Heaven & Hell


 different voices & tongues


coalescing

 

in


the blessing of one



PHANTOM VOICES


 

FLOATING


 

ABOVE


 

BROOKLYN


 

SING


 

REVELATIONS


 

OF


 

THE DEAD


 


by Dr. Mel Waldman  


 (on reading D. Nurkse’s poem-The Dead Reveal Secrets of Brooklyn)


 

Phantom voices


floating above Brooklyn


 

wafting


to earth


 

&


resting secretly on the old roof


 

of


James Madison High


 

invisibly


swirling & whirling beyond time,


 

&


perched on Pandora’s Box in a preternatural meditation,


 

phantom voices


sing revelations of the dead.


 

&


Mr. B


 

sails


across Brooklyn on his 1955 Vincent Black Prince,


 

majestic motorcycle


flying high from Coney Island to Midwood northbound on Ocean Parkway


 

&


turning east on Kings Highway & south on Bedford Avenue


 

sweeping


through the unreality of sweet phantasmagoria within my whirling dreamscape


 

my private divinity


&


 

Mr. B


returns to James Madison High


                                       &


                                      I-to Yesterday-wearing the ethereal shroud of euphoria/dysphoria


 

circa 1958


rushing to his English class &The Poetry & Philosophy Club


 

&


I kiss Destiny, the strange seductive flower growing in the Garden of the Past,


 

I


return to You & caress my ferocious flower within my Dream-Mind


 

&


what shall I find when You awaken within my dream?


 

With


Your rebirth, what shall I find?


 

&


ghostly voices, light & mellifluous  as the susurrations of zephyrs & opalescent angels,


 

whisper,


              The dead never die.


 

&


an invisible orchestra plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue


 

&


phantom voices sing


 

&


phantom voices sing


 &


phantom voices sing revelations of the dead


 

&


death is the boy falling into the deep snow of mourning


 in


the very hot summer of despair as sweat falls from his (my) brow


&


 


He . . . floats with phantom voices


 

&


I taste the eerie emptiness of mother’s lost lacerated voice


 

                         She lies beside her otherworldly oxygen tank, rises suddenly, & shrieks,


                                      “I thought I was dying,”


 

                                       &


                                       dies,


 

                                       blasting off


                                       into the unfathomable black hole of everlasting stillness.


 

as


I plummet through the trapdoor of my electrocuted brain


 

&


I die too.


 

&


Dr. Z,


 

my high school Hebrew teacher,


frees me, asks the dream-boy at James Madison High to read again from Isaiah 2:3-4.


 

Why?


Why do I pass through this supernatural door?


 

Now, the boy sings poetic words, sings revelations of the dead,


 

“. . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”


 

Then suddenly, Dr. Z & dream-boy vanish,


&


 

within


the harrowing hour, in a mournful, mutilated room of black flowers,


 

one unfathomable day,


I hear,


 

Young X, honor student, member of the rifle club, has taken his life!


I hear,


as C, the robotic school official, tells us—the senior class—this soul-cutting truth,


 

&


rushes off while we meditate on death.


 

&


phantom voices sing,


 

. . . the evanescence of death is everlasting . . .


&


. . . everlasting is the obscene evanescence . . .


 

&


K,


 

the young Kafka of James Madison High,


asks,


 

Why?


 

&


I die while phantom voices floating above Brooklyn sing revelations of the dead


 &


within the swirling dream-flower of my life


  


I


die too forever,


 

again & again


I


die




  


constreetheader.jpg
Art by Elise Daher Š 2018

CONUNDRUM STREET.

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

(on reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “The Long Street”)

 

 

 

On

Conundrum Street

 

I

follow a throng

 

of

haunted humans

 

&

a cornucopia of creatures

 

to

Coney Island

 

to

taste the cool metaphysical air

 

&

inhale the raw wisdom

 

of

the burning sand & the bestial ocean

 

&

ride on the cosmic Cyclone again

 

&

the otherworldly Wonder Wheel

 

&

whirling around a chimerical omphalos

 

I

look up at the Parachute Jump

 

our

antediluvian landmark

 

&

mourn for the old & weary & obsolete

 

&

the dead & the lost & the living dead

 

until

I saunter off

 

in

a trancelike state

 

to

Nathan’s

 

to

devour

 

sizzling

hot dogs supreme

 

&

crackling crunchy

 

French

fries majestic

 

&

soon, oblivious of who I am

 

&

where I’m going I rush slowly

across

Conundrum Street

 

the

unfathomable street

 

 

that

swirls around the world

 

&

pirouettes across the universe

 

&

mindlessly I go on my magical journey

 

&

meander through Brooklyn

 

orphan

cockroaches & odd creatures by my side

 

&

weird humans

 

with

vacant eyes still in the wilderness

 

&

wild anorexic beings

 

with

turquoise auras & telepathic powers

 

&

peripatetic phantoms too

 

join

me

 

&

mindlessly I go on my odyssey

 

through

Brighton & Manhattan Beach

 

&

Sheepshead Bay & Midwood

 

&

all the neighborhoods I know

 

 

&

all the ones still undiscovered

 

&

along the way

 

I

find myself in Lily Pond

 

at

Brooklyn College

 

until

I wander off to Brooklyn Heights

 

&

stroll along the Promenade

 

&

gaze at the Twin Towers

 

no

longer there

 

&

so it goes

 

on

Conundrum Street

 

I

time travel too

 

return

to the Garment Center

 

sit

with Father

 

hard

working dress salesman

 

in

Horn & Hardart

 

 

&

listen to the little man’s voice

 

&

the vastness of his dreams

 

&

look dreamily into his dark brown eyes

 

perched

on his Austrian horse-scarred face

 

adorned

with a Lilliputian equine bite

 

cascading

down one cheek

 

above

a thin black moustache

 

&

a glittering gold tooth

 

majestically

revealed

 

protruding

with a wide wicked smile

 

&

childlike joy

 

&

I see my Father-God

 

&

his bestial beauty

 

unalloyed

ecstasy

 

but

how odd that we-

 

 

are

oblivious of our mortality

 

&

harrowing destiny

 

&

fast-forward a few decades

 

&

recall the death of Father’s mind & memory

 

the

insidious death before death

 

slithering

in the remains of a broken brain

 

the

snake that eats the past

 

devours

synapses

 

severs

the self

 

on

Conundrum Street

 

that

swirls around the world

 

&

pirouettes across the universe

 

merges

time

 

caresses

yesterday

 

swallows

now

 

 

&

tastes tomorrow

 

a

street that never ends

 

even

when it comes to a cul-de-sac

 

&

bathes in frozen stillness

 

the

peculiar blessing of non-being

 

it

follows phantoms

 

through

the House of the Dead

 

to

the other side of Conundrum Street

 

&

beyond

 

 

 

 

 


constreetfooter.jpg
Art by Elise Daher Š 2018

unfathomablerhapsody.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2018

UNFATHOMABLE RHAPSODY

 

OF

 

PSYCHOSIS

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

Unfathomable Rhapsody

beautiful

 

&

grotesque

 

rushes

eerily through crackling exploding brain cells

 

&

the other hears hallucinatory music

 

the

harrowing & haunting Music of Un-Reality

 

&

phantom voices riding oceanic waves

 

flood

the wounded self

 

drowning

in the dreamscape

 

&

the unfathomable rhapsody rushes through the apparitional universe.

 

 

The other

drinks the overflowing ocean of psychosis

 

swallows

a cornucopia of madness

 

&

OD’s on otherworldly sensory overload

 

but

awakens & dances deliriously to the spectral music of trauma.

 

 

“Psychosis

is a blessing,” a phantasmal voice whispers.

 

“Or is it

a bestial blizzard of unbearable revelations,

 

a strange rhapsody

or fantastic requiem for the living dead?”

 

 

A ghostly chorus shrieks, “Salvation or sudden death?”

 

 

 

houseofunreality.jpg
Art by Shiela McGuckin Š 2019

HOUSE

 

OF

 

UN-REALITY

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

(on reading Tomas Tranströmer’s poem “The Blue House”)

 

 

 

On

trauma-filled days

 

I

return to the vanishing house of my youth

 

the

House of Un-Reality

 

in

Old Brooklyn

 

on

East 7th Street

 

around

the corner from Ocean Parkway

 

a

phantom flowing vastness

 

galloping

to the lost time of Coney & beyond

 

Avenue Yesterday

&

 

Highway

to nowhere

for

even the Coney Island of the boy

 

exists

now only in a spiraling dream

 

a

distant vision

 

a

phantasmagoria

 

from

far away

 

rushing

&

 

cascading

down Chimerical Falls

 

into

an ocean of electrical synaptic chaos

 

&

still I return to Old Brooklyn

 

hunched

over in Trauma Time

 

across

the street from the house I once lived in

 

&

I gaze wistfully at my House of Un-Reality

 

lost

in blossoming waves of longing & melancholy

 

swept

away in a swirl of iridescence

 

dancing

butterfly wings

 

 

&

shimmering peacock feathers

 

&

glittering sea shells

 

pirouetting

across a mythical seascape—

 

a

flood of nostalgia & fluid memories

 

&

magically with the X-ray vision of Superman

 

my

gold eyes puncture the past

 

see

through the brick façade

 

&

look inward

 

where

the phantom boy

 

gallops

around a child’s little universe

 

wearing

a Hopalong Cassidy crown-shaped black cowboy hat

 

the

Champie

 

&

a Hoppy double-holster with gold revolvers & black grips

 

for

Hoppy’s a child’s hero

 

in

the now of yesterday’s dream

 

 

a

beautiful blossoming

 

flowing

symbol of good in all black

 

pristine

& sinless man of morality

 

fights

evil with gallantry

 

captures

villains & foe

 

Hoppy’s

a child’s hero

 

mounted

on Topper

 

his

white horse

 

in

a dream

 

in

the House of Un-Reality

 

&

the boy’s oblivious

 

of

real gunfire

 

happy

in play

 

galloping

around yesterday

 

&

soon

 

 

when

the boy inhales the fire of Father’s fury

 

 

he’ll

become Hoppy again

 

&

be free

 

Hoppy, Hoppy, Hoppy, Hopalong Cassidy

ghostofborges.jpg
Art by Darren Blanch Š 2019

THE GHOSTS

 

OF

 

BORGES

 

&

 

OTHERS

 

RUSHING SLOWLY

 

&

 

RISING

 

THROUGH

 

THE UNDERGROUND LABYRINTH

 

OF

 

THE HOUSE OF UN-REALITY

 

 

 

By Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

(on reading Tomas Tranströmer’s poem “The Bookcase”)

 

 

 

I

am not alone

 

in

this alone-ness place

 

here

in the nowhere of nowhere

 

in

the House of Un-Reality

I

am not alone

 

 

 

Gold

eyes gaze into the tomb of trauma in the swirling Room of Infinity

 

the

eerie omphalos

 

&

phantom center of ghosts

 

a

barren cornucopia

 

&

dystopia of emptiness

 

&

the human-less vastness

 

&

the wild waves of snow for miles & miles

 

&

the blessings of oblivion

 

ineffable

vision

 

overflowing

in the blind man’s blizzard

 

the

ghost of Borges in the House of Un-Reality

 

Above,

old objects possess preternatural power

 

in

the unspeakable hour of revelations

 

mundane

objects in metamorphosis

 

approaching

transcendence & illumination—

 

mutilated

antiques

 

convex

& concave mirrors

 

&

swinging doors through a wormhole into the soul

 

&

metaphysical paintings singing of non-being

 

&

Bizarro portraits of the dead

 

&

wounded walls & harrowing halls

 

&

torn books read long ago

 

adorned

with ashes & dust

 

ruins

& rust

 

&

moribund bookcases with broken shelves & splintered wood & lost selves

 

&

obsolete manuscripts

 

&

esoteric notes on Post-its about the nature of the universe & the Apocalypse

 

 

 

Below,

the ghosts of Borges & others

rush

slowly & rise through the underground labyrinth

 

while

metaphysical notes pirouette across non-being

 

unfathomable

sound from the underground

 

&

a ghost rhapsody

 

 

 

&

in a transcendental chasm of time

 

a

schism in space

 

a

pause in Un-Reality

 

carved

with the celestial hand of Dali

 

&

the fabulous words of Borges

 

this

is the blessing & despair

 

while

the mystical clock chimes nowhere

 

&

after the Apocalypse

 

this

is the trauma & the ecstasy

 

while

the deathless clock chimes divinity

 

&

the ghosts gaze into the quantum universe

 

 

in

search of Schrödinger’s cat & revelations

 

before

rising again in the ineffable hour of illuminations

 

for

a rendezvous with old objects in metamorphosis—

 

the

keepers of history

 

&

the secret Labyrinth of Infinity & the boundless Mirror of Anguish & Bliss

 

 

 

 



iamborgia.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

I

 

AM

 

BORGES

 

TRAPPED

 

IN

 

THE OVAL MIRROR

 

OF

 

BLACKNESS

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

I

am Borges

 

trapped in the oval mirror of blackness gushing darkness in a barren universe of non-being bereft of the blessings of light a spectral dot in a vacant galaxy whirling around the rim of a wounded dream dead eyes looking out & cutting through the shroud of the everlasting night & tasting broken glass & the swirl of a dust devil & eating celestial visions

 

I

am Borges

 

diving into the deep of phantasmagoria a magic lantern on fire exploding with chimerical light & unreality

 

I

am Borges

 

blessing you with the metaphysical flow of divinity the metamorphosis & miracle of sacred words illuminating the unfathomable universe

iamhesse.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

I

 

AM

 

HESSE

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman

  

 

 

 

I

am Hesse

 

soul-hunter

 

a stranger in the forbidden kingdom of Shadows lost in the bestial landscape I cross in the celestial light & the oval darkness the eerie swirls of night in search of my fugitive self

 

Unblessed & trapped in my antediluvian House of Duality I dangle in inner space between the divine & demonic like my Steppenwolf half-man & half-wolf

 

In the deep of despair, I descend into the Shadows & swallow the flood of darkness overflowing with loss & death & drink & drown in self-pity in mourner’s unreality

 

After Mother’s death & my absence from her funeral I eat everlasting emptiness & time is a mustang galloping across phantasmagoria & unholy years vanish until I taste the fire of foul Truths—Father’s death my distant Johannes & my youngest son’s terrible illness my precious Martin & my wife’s voyage into madness poor Mia’s schizophrenia—& plummet into oblivion

 

I

am Hesse

 

intoxicated & vanishing in the kingdom of sin a sensuous stranger commanding me to be you within the bestial bars & lurid dance halls of Zurich for I am my creation Steppenwolf too

 

Now I enter therapy with Dr. Lang & float in the sea of Jungian archetypes & see for the very first time through the preternatural window of perception for this is my crisis & psychoanalysis is my labyrinthine exit out of melancholy & the abyss

 

& when the merciless hour of anguish returns I meet with Dr. Jung in search of self & spirituality & my psychoanalysis is a holy metamorphosis & catharsis for from the throes of depression comes healing & integration & the transcendent oneness of a thousand selves

 

I

am Hesse

 

the soul-hunter

 

floating in the sea of Jungian archetypes luminous images rushing through the psyche & a cornucopia of revelations from the collective unconscious Persona, Shadow, Anima/Animus, & Self & . . . now I unmask my social faces & gaze into the maw of darkness & see the eerie female in me in syzygy & the oneness of self the oneness of who I am

iamcamus.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

I

 

AM

 

CAMUS

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman

 

 

 

Born

in the bestial abyss of poverty

 

I

am Camus

 

child-man of the sun & sea tasting the African sun the sprawling canopy of fire above & the Mediterranean Sea that bathes my flesh & feeds my unfathomable being in the blazing universe

 

&

I am Camus

 

fatherless 

in a foreign universe

 

Father—

Lucien Auguste Camus—I did not know you killed in WWI I was less than one bereft & left with Mother & older brother & a chilling anecdote that burned the ferocious truth into my brainwaves the barren revelation that once you witnessed a public execution & got deathly ill from this obliteration & this visceral micro-story filled my emptiness & an un-blessing entered my mind & body became part of me imprinted in the invisible universe within & so I wrote & wrote & wrote transforming pain into words   for this is my metamorphosis & yes this is my being & evolution as a writer

 

Mother—

Catherine Helene (Sintes) Camus—you were deaf & illiterate & after Father’s death we moved to Algiers & lived with your family condemned   confined incarcerated in a claustrophobic prison cell of poverty a raw merciless flood mind drowning in the ruinous downpour of reality

 

I

am Camus

 

child-man

of the sun & sea intoxicated with the sensuous universe cosmos of splendor cornucopia of gorgeous glorious galaxies the sensuous universe the African sun

 

nature’s

grandeur everlasting & the everflowing panorama is a rhapsody the music of the desert & the mountain the sky & sea

 

&

the strange beautiful bestial paradox of paradise & poverty side by side

 

&

man is alone in this grand universe

 

I

am alone

 

tasting

& swallowing the chilling fire of cosmic indifference no God no transcendence only the furious waves of human existence in an ocean of absurdity Heaven & Hell here & now in the African sun & the Mediterranean Sea

 

&

I am Camus

 

&

like Mersault, my fictional creation, I too am a stranger drifting along a seething beach swallowing the African sun & nature’s majesty & drinking the opalescence luminescence of the meaningless universe & its monstrous beauty

 

&

eating my aloneness isolation & merciless mortality in the maw of death   my everlasting ebony hole of nothingness the abyss of my nonbeing in the overflowing cosmos oblivious of me child-man of the sun & sea

 

Fatherless

in a foreign universe

 

I

am the isolated man forever the stranger & the outsider observing the inside world & gazing inward

 

swallowing

the Sisyphean struggle of my being quietly singing the song of the rebel   solitary man ferocious sensualist natural man lover of nature for the sensuous universe is all—it is Father & Mother & I am the other & its

lover

 

I

am Camus

 

Father

of Catherine & Jean the twins  

 

call

me loving soothing Papa & we play soccer & I laugh uproariously child-man of the sun & sea

 

&

I am Camus

 

lover

of women 2 wives & sundry mistresses  

 

Yet

with Simone my 1st wife 

 

I

was alone

 

poor

Simone hooked on morphine Simone Hie we had to say goodbye

 

Francine Faure

my 2nd wife gave me more Mother of Catherine & Jean

 

But

did I drive my precious Francine into the unforgiving & unfathomable abyss of madness?

 

Is

this my guilt & un-blessing for my carnal lust?

 

Must

I confess again & again?

 

Yes

I love the others too my mistresses my lovers but you Francine are my precious wife for life & Mother of Catherine & Jean & to you I am your husband Albert Camus

 

I

am Camus

 

child-man

of the sun & sea & wounded man who almost died of TB lover of the grand universe lover of gorgeous galloping nature lover of 2 wives & sundry mistresses  

 

loving

soothing Father of the twins  

 

&

like you a human of mortal & carnal sins

 

&

now in the fall of 1957 I receive the Nobel Prize too soon at 44 can’t fathom why unworthy am I

 

Is

this Heaven or Hell?

 

I

am Camus

 

writer

& rebel  

 

in

the absurd universe there’s so much more to write still ensconced in mid-career here in this death-bound existence so much more to do too soon for early goodbyes

 

I

am forever Albert Camus

 

 

 



beautifulmadness.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS

 

ON

 

MALLORY SQUARE

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

A

beautiful madness on Mallory Square

 

the

blessings of the tropical sun

 

&

the feast of oneness

 

waiting

for a glorious sunset

 

 

 

opals

in the sky

 

&

a celestial cornucopia

 

 

 

eerie

earthy otherworldly celebration

 

watching

the gorgeous galloping red sun

 

plummet

into

 

illusion

the phantasmagoria

of

 

the

fire of the sun

 

 

 

&

the Eyes of all

 

sail

above

 

swirl

& follow the hypnotic vision

 

in

holy union & love

 

 

 

waiting

for the ineffable moment

 

the

fantastic fall & flow

 

 

 

watching

the magical sphere

 

drop

& merge & vanish

 

with

the chimerical horizon

 

of

the Gulf of Mexico

 

 

 

 

 

&

below

 

before

& after & across the vastness of the everlasting Key West party

 

a

sunset celebration for humans of the world

 

 

 

visitors

& visionaries

 

magicians

& circus people

 

musicians

& artists

 

a

kaleidoscope of entertainers & vendors

 

a

mystical gathering

 

&

a beautiful madness on Mallory Square

beautifuldeath.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

A

 

BEAUTIFUL DEATH

 

ON

 

MALLORY SQUARE

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

A

beautiful death on Mallory Square

 

rushing

slowly along the pier

 

by

the Gulf of Mexico

 

 

 

below

the gorgeous sun

 

a

sprawling canopy of blazing red

 

our

omnipotent Lady of the Light

 

anointing

&

 

devouring

&

 

blessing

us with delirious revelations & celestial ecstasy

 

&

visions of Palomino Mustangs

 

golden

horses with creamy manes & tails gallop across my Mind’s Eye

 

 

 

while

strangers say, “hello,”

 

&

stroll along the docks

 

wearing

eerie auras of divinity

 

waiting

for the grand sunset & the bestial secrets of the night

 

 

 

&

to the invisible universe,

 

I

whisper the metaphysical

 

why?

 

 

 

&

magicians & circus folks

 

&

“Cookie Lady”

 

&

“Cat Man”

 

&

madmen & mystics

 

 

&

artists & musicians

 

&

a cornucopia of un-real performers

 

enchant

& amaze   bewilder   &   delight   us

 

inside

the existential maze of Mallory Square

 

 

 

&

otherworldly travelers

 

grin

wisely, enigmatically at you & me

 

&

wait for the Great Rondini

 

magnificent

escape artist & neo-Houdini

 

to

appear in chains here & now on Mallory Square & free himself at sunset

 

 

 

I

too wish to be free

 

&

ride the celestial waves

 

rushing

slowly along the pier

 

 by

the Gulf of Mexico on Mallory Square

 

 

 

 

where

the invisible universe flows & fuels          metamorphosis & transcendence  

 

creation   obliteration   &   resurrection

 

 

 

&

I wish to be free

 

like

my chimerical Palomino Mustangs galloping across my Mind’s Eye

 

unbridled   &   unleashed

 

 

 

&

the beautiful death on Mallory Square

 

that

blesses us on this everlasting night where our Lady of the Light dies

 

 

 

yes,

I wish to be free & unbridled

 

letting

go of the reins of the human brain

 

 

 

&

free

 

as

I release the self from its bestial cage

 

 

 

&

transformed 

 

as

I watch my ego melt by the Gulf of Mexico

below

our vanishing Lady

 

here

on Mallory Square

 

where

I shall be transcendentally free

luminousmetamorphosis.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

A

 

LUMINOUS METAMORPHOSIS

 

ON

 

MALLORY SQUARE

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

A

luminous metamorphosis on Mallory Square

 

strangers

darting & flitting

 

or

rushing slowly

 

within

the wild efflorescence & divine rhapsody of light

 

 

 

&

gold eyes drink the opalescence of celestial design

 

&

an eerie paradox

 

a

cornucopia of chaos & dazzling illumination

 

 

 

 

&

visionary eyes swallow a sweet phantasmagoria

 

beneath

the vastness of the red sun

 

inside

the invisible Circle of Un-Reality

 

 

 

&

soon I watch the others who watch me too

 

with

love & peace

 

not

paranoia

 

 

 

time-out

from

 

the

troubles of humanity

 

 

 

strangers

in sync dreaming & waiting for transcendence

 

&

watching the hypnotic sun

 

drop

into the Gulf of Mexico

 

&

disappear

 

 

&

I vanish too

 

within

a luminous metamorphosis   my mystical death

 

 

 

&

nearby

 

at

Zero Duval Street

 

my

phantom alter ego

 

sits

at the Sunset Pier

 

at

the Ocean Key House

 

shrouded

in preternatural light

 

waiting

for a metaphysical re-union

 

the

marriage of spirit & flesh

 

after

death

 

an

everlasting resurrection

 

 

 


ym_76_oct19_cafebizarro.jpg
Art by Ann Marie Rhiel Š 2019

STRANGE DAYS

 

AT

 

CAFÉ BIZARRO

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 (inspired by the song and lyrics of Strange Days by The Doors)

 

 

 

Strange

days at Café Bizarro

 

intoxicating

Un-Reality

 

flooding

my brain

 

the

insane invasion is here

 

apocalypse

nowhere

 

&

tomorrow merges with yesterday

 

flows

fiercely

 

reveals

my hallucinatory story

 

the

eerie everlasting past is now

 

far

away & within

yesterday

is

 

my sin

 

I

long for Old Brooklyn

 

but

can’t find my way there

 

don’t

belong here anymore

 

still

craving sweet phantasmagoria

 

visions

of the eerie everlasting past

 

euphoria

dysphoria?

 

&

visions of the grand unknown

 

&

dreaming of

 

peace & love

 

with

a Doors song

 

&

overflowing otherworldly madness

 

blessings

of a visionary

 

the

ghost of Jim Morrison

 

is

here

 

in

apocalypse nowhere

 

 

 

Strange

days at Café Bizarro

 

&

the phantom sun waits for tomorrow

 

&

tomorrow is out there

 

somewhere

beyond where I belong singing a Doors song

 

tasting

the sin of Old Brooklyn & visions of the grand unknown

 

 

 

alone

 

in

the vastness of my dreams

 

alone

ym_76_oct19_nightrevsinbizarrocounty.jpg
Art by W. Jack Savage Š 2019

NIGHT REVELATIONS

 

IN

 

BIZARRO COUNTRY

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

I

drink the oval darkness

 

a

swirling Sombrero

 

rotating

Mexican hat

 

&/or

mind-altering vanilla malted

 

Kahlua

on the rocks with cream

 

my

otherworldly dream journey

 

 

 

&

taste the raw scent of phantasmagoria

 

an

eerie sweetness

 

the

bite of paradox

 

&

the bitter maw of illusion

a

magic lantern

 

&

a dream rushing forth in my trauma-flooded head

 

 

 

like

the mad waves of Freud’s ID  

 

oceanic

storm in the forbidden darkness

 

or

a mad dog in Un-Reality

 

or

a demonic migraine that floods my brain with unbearable pain

 

 

 

but

in a grand metamorphosis

 

sweet

phantasmagoria

 

gallops

across my Mind’s Eye like a gorgeous mustang

 

&

my beautiful beast of grandeur/transcendence

 

recreates

me on my everlasting journey into Bizarro Country

 

 

 

&

in the deep nothingness

 

I

drink the terrible darkness

 

 

&

devour night revelations

 

the

glimmer of divine light

 

&

the Mysterium Tremendum  

 

I

fear/seek

 

a

metaphysical conundrum

 

here

in the nowhere of Bizarro Country

ym_76_oct19_roomnoexitsign.jpg
Art by W. Jack Savage Š 2019

THE ROOM

 

WITH

 

A

 

NO EXIT SIGN

 

A.K.A.

 

THE PRISON CELL

 

OF

 

THE SELF

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

(on reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem—

As in a Play by Jean-Paul Sartre)

 

 

 

It

always happens

 

in

the room

 

with

a no exit sign

 

dangling

from the low ceiling

 

an

antediluvian room

 

in

the primal swirl of nowhere

 

 

 

&

the glittering thing

 

crackling

light bulb

 

is

scarier than the Mysterium Tremendum

 

the

terrible mystery engulfing us

 

&

an ominous omen

 

in

a tiny cell

 

a

tomb

 

perhaps

in the no-place of sin

 

with

vanishing visions of Heaven

 

 

 

&

a flood of red wine

 

pours

out of a no exit sign

 

&

crimson & black walls too

 

from

west to east

 

&

north to south

 

into

the claustrophobic space & you

          the

          one buried in the deep snow

 

encircling

&

 

enclosing

the cold mask

 

          of

          an other-ness face

 

          without

          a trace of truth

 

          or

          soothing fire

 

&

into the phantom mouth of the beast

 

a

monstrous maw of demonic invisibility

 

&

power

 

that

swallows

 

the

pariah

 

in

the harrowing hour

 

 

 

&

once again

 

the

past comes forth

 

&

in a waterfall of blood

 

&

a phantasmagoria

 

of

unspeakable visions

 

cascades

over the room

 

for

the past is here forever

 

possessing

its prey

 

&

in this private cell

 

the

prisoner travels across the dreamscape

 

no exit

no

 

escape

on the way to destiny

 

crossing

a cornucopia of boulevards & avenues

 

across

the earth & beyond

 

bizarro

journeys

 

into

multiple galaxies & the multiverse

 

&

always the same news

 

the

eerie birth of the same past

 

the

same outcomes

 

around

the bend

 

a

fatalistic end

 

a

frightful manifestation

 

of

the Freudian repetition compulsion

 

until

the Deus ex machina arrives

 

or

Freud’s heir

 

&

the false self-dies

 

here

in the room with a no exit sign

 

a.k.a.

the prison cell of the self

 

where

the lost other

 

lets

go

 

expels

despair/uncages love

 

&

gives birth to the real self—rising from the deep snow

 

 

 

 


ODE

 

TO

 

OLD BROOKLYN

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

On empty nights I return to the deep snow

of winter & the sizzling heat of summer &

the grand dream

of yesterday

so faraway

& still I know

Old Brooklyn &

my forbidden dream

 

I do not belong

& so I long to sing an antediluvian song

 

 

 

On machine-fueled nights that devour

me,

severed self, displaced visionary

in the harrowing hour

of techno-toy possession

& cultural obsession

I travel to a timeless place of love & sin

rushing slowly through Old Brooklyn

in my bestial brain/broken spirit

 

 

 

Now, I sit

on my chimerical-memory chair

& gaze inward into the deep nothingness where

I clutch the lost past the lost rhapsody

& soon I see

what no longer belongs to me

 

 

 

& still I drink soothing visions of picture-postcard homes on the Old Brooklyn block we shared

because we cared

& we possessed a one-ness

without other-ness  

 

 

 

& that’s why I watch the boy play ball

& Mother cook for all

on the children’s block no longer there

where I wish to be, not here

 

 

 

Instinctively, we understood Martin Buber’s I and Thou

but how?

 

 

 

Just kids, we played stickball & punchball

“all for one & one for all”

on the corner & the rim of our wondrous universe blessing/holding us in a beautiful bond

& sometimes the ball sailed into the world beyond

lost forever in chimerical time

gone with an old-fashioned rhyme

& suddenly my Old Brooklyn rhapsody

dissolves into cacophony

 

 

 

& Father, a thin mustached tiny man, chases me through Old Brooklyn

never catches me

with crimson fury

clutching a black leather strap in his mighty hand

clutching sin

clutching rage

but out of breath

can’t follow me through space & time

as I return to the empty night & the cage

of loss & a death

vaster than Death



LOST

 

IN

 

GREENWICH VILLAGE

 

 

By Dr. Mel Waldman

 

Looking out the window in my tiny room, I watch the sun drop in the sky and die, vanishing in the August night. For a few seconds, I imagine I’m back in Mallory Square, Key West gazing at a gorgeous sunset. And my mind, an old mustang, gallops into the sweet phantasmagoria of the Heavens, a beautiful place that feeds my broken soul.

Soon, in a trancelike state, I turn around, sit in a wooden chair and open a paperback book. It is The Secret of Evil by Roberto Bolańo. My gold eyes dart and flit across the hypnotic pages and now, I too vanish inside his addictive words and eerie stories. Later, I take my evening INFER pills for my illness and saunter off into the seething night.

Leaving my room on the Upper West Side, I head south on Broadway. Time dissolves and space shrinks and I meander through the forbidden streets of Manhattan. By chance or destiny, I find myself in Washington Square Park. I sit on a bench by the Washington Arch and ponder the beautiful night.

The swirl of darkness swallows my brain and suddenly, I rise and rush off. I don’t know where I’m going. But it seems I’m heading west.

I wander through the West Village until my weary body stops at the Riviera Café at 7th Avenue South. “Thought the place had closed down,” I mutter. “But it’s still here.”

I enter the familiar café where we used to dine every week.

A short dark-eyed woman welcomes me and asks, “Your usual table, Sir?”

“Sure,” I say. Yet I don’t recall where we used to sit nor the tiny woman who knows me.

She takes me to a dimly lit corner in the back. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.” She scurries off.

Soon, a lanky waiter arrives. “How are you tonight?”

“Fine.”

“Will your wife and twin girls be joining you?”

“No.”

“Well, give them my best.”

“Of course.”

“Will you be having our Dinner Special #1?”

I look quizzically at him.

“It’s your favorite meal.”

“Sure.”

He hurries off.

I gaze at the oval darkness through the Riviera’s glass walls and vanish in boketto. After drifting across an ocean of vacant gazing, I return to a beautiful place.

In my mind’s eye, we’re lying on the sprawling sand in Manhattan Beach. My wife Sarah and our twins Anna and Annette are by my side on a mammoth aqua beach towel.

But soon, they scurry across the burning sand and jump into the cool waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I sit up and watch them splashing and swimming. When Sarah and the girls return, Anna, my brown-eyed wonder, cries out, “Daddy, can we go to Coney Island and eat some hot dogs and fries?” “And can we go on the rides?” Annette adds, her brown eyes, a shade lighter than Anna’s, stare longingly at me.

Sarah grins wickedly and says, “Your father works hard all week, girls. Maybe he wants to go home and rest.”

My girls hug my chest and beg, “Please, Daddy…”

“Okay, girls. Just for a short while,” I growl.  Yet being with my wife and girls is the thrill of my life.

Then suddenly, my family and Manhattan Beach disappear.

I’m floating in boketto, looking out into the merciless darkness.

“What happened?” a distant voice cries out, cutting through the seething darkness. “What really happened?”

The voice is eerily familiar. Is it the ominous sound of my alter ego shrieking from the other side of reality? Or is it Sarah’s mournful voice or the melancholy voices of my precious girls? Who is calling out to me? Who?

Time dissolves and space shrinks again. Like an out-of-body experience, I watch the Riviera Café and Greenwich village vanish. Where am I? Who am I?

I look around and find myself back in my claustrophobic room. The clock on the night table says 3 a.m. Time to take my bedtime medicine-a cornucopia of INFER pills. After swallowing the potent pills, I lie down and read The Secret of Evil.  

Time rushes slowly through my brain and I hear someone crying next door. I place my head against the wall. The crying stops abruptly.

After an interlude of silence, an uncanny voice whispers, “What happened? What really happened?”

I lie down again and notice a long white envelope next to the clock. Inside, is a note to myself.

I am in the Riviera Hotel. I take 3 INFERNO pills 3 times a day to cope with my illness. Someday, I’ll remember… Until then and forever, I love my wife Sarah and our twin girls Anna and Annette. What shall I get them for Valentine’s Day, only 6 months away?

I ponder these beautiful thoughts as I plummet into a deep sleep-a therapeutic exploration of the 9 circles of inner space induced by my INFERNO pills. The pain will diminish in time; my doctors tell me. And now, from faraway, in a safe place, I whisper, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”



 

 

 

AN

 

EERIE JOURNEY

 

DOWN

 

THE INVISIBLE STAIRCASE

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

(on reading Margaret Atwood’s poem-Down)

 

&

I travel across the invisible universe within my whirling brainwaves rising & falling in the wilds of my vanishing mind each moribund moment buried in the deep snow of unreal days where I breathe the fire of cosmic breath & taste the sweet phantasmagoria of my daily voyage-an eerie journey down the invisible staircase into an unfathomable netherworld.

 

Even

when the sun arrives & shoots light into my little home I eat the darkness & within the sprawling luminosity I see the butchered battered landscape the wounded crimson terrain overflowing with the broken glass of trauma.

 

Outside,

crepuscular insects rise & breathe light & still I descend the otherworldly stairs into the blackness that permeates my perforated brain.

 

&

now, I inhale the scent of anguish & the foul odor of unbearable losses & a cornucopia of merciless deaths. More unreal than the strangeness of everyday life is my descent into this frightful realm. Phantoms shrouded in spheres of invisibility fill my ferocious emptiness & slice my barren being. Is this piercing/shattering the transverberation of my soul? Immersed in an antediluvian kingdom, I step into the deep of darkness.

 

What

is this untraceable place? Is it the deep of the divine or the bestial maw of the demonic? Flooded with the ineffable, I slip farther into the blackness & plummet into an unfathomable/unknowable Un-Reality overflowing with eerie voices & unspeakable truths from beyond, buried in the thick bizarro snow that covers all & falls forever




I

 

LAY

 

WITH

 

TIGERS

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

(on reading Jorge Luis Borges’s poem-The Gold of the Tigers)

 

 

 

I

lay with tigers

 

in

the vastness of inner space

 

in

the rush of the ruins of an unknown countryside

 

the

Un-Reality

 

of

the sweep & swirl of sweet phantasmagoria

 

&

the frightful flow

 

of

a fantastic revelation

 

in

apocalypse nowhere

 

here

within the phantom mansion

 

of

a lucid dream rushing slowly through infinity

 

 

 

I

lay beside the beautiful beasts

 

brushing

against their majesty

 

&

lost within the postern of my lacerated mind

 

behind

their terrible torsos & striped skin

 

I

listened to their bestial breaths

 

 

 

I

lay behind gold & white & black tigers,

 

never

gazing at their ferocious faces/omnipotent eyes

 

that

could rip my soul apart

 

nor

did I taste the fury & foul scent of heavy tiger breaths 

 

hovering

above the eerie earth

 

but

still I brushed against their ferocious skin

 

&

smelled the exotic aroma of tiger fur

 

a

pungent otherworldly odor

 

in

inner space

 

&

suddenly, the black & white tigers

 

vanished

without a trace

 

&

only the gold beauties stayed with me

 

 

 

&

soon a celestial veil covered me

 

&

droplets of serenity oozed from my mind

 

&

my wounded flesh no longer reeked of terror

 

&

the foul odor evaporated in the nothingness of nowhere

 

evanescing

into the sea of divinity

 

&

hallucinatory waves carried me to my private Heaven

 

 

 

&

so I lay with gold tigers

 

nestled

in their harrowing realm

 

&

suddenly, the glittering aura of bestial presence lost its eerie glow

 

&

without fear/terror

 

I

blessed the dream that possessed me

 

&

the beasts within the wilds of my brain

 

&

within the celestial ocean of sweet phantasmagoria

 

I

watched gold tigers kiss my vanishing soul

 

a

ghost of a ghost of glorious light

 

&

the phantom flow of opalescence

 

&

my beautiful beasts merged with the mystical light

 

in

the blackness of my dream

 

 

 

&

we were one

 

basking

in the chimerical sun

 

on

this magical night

 

of

metamorphosis

 

the

night of my transcendence

 

when

I lay with tigers

 

&

tasted visions of Heaven




RUSHING SLOWLY

 

THROUGH

 

A

 

LUCID DREAM

 

WITH

 

ROBERTO BOLAŃO

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

Lost in Greenwich Village, I meander mindlessly around the charming landscape that enchants & encircles me, an exotic conundrum & magical place/dazzling maze propelling me westward until I return to the Riviera Café.

 

“Is this Kismet?” I mutter.

 

Standing on 7th Avenue South, nestled between 7th Avenue & West 4th & West 10th Streets, I look through the café’s fantastic window. My friend Charlie sits in a corner.

 

Inside, I reveal an eerie dream.

 

My short rotund Charlie grins wickedly; his celestial smile gallops into my invisible universe. “The turquoise sky dissolves; years/decades evaporate; sail/swirl into . . .” Charlie gazes quizzically at me; his thin moustache quivers. He whispers a chimerical vision, “An olive-colored man, blonde woman, & dirty blond baby rest on the beach, 3 souls entwined.”  He shrieks, “Where are they?”

 

“Is this Kismet?” I mutter.

 

The white sand is a gorgeous galloping expanse of love/loss. “Is this Kismet on Fire Island or a pristine beach on Cape Cod?” A vast unbearable silence sweeps through us, lacerates our celestial oneness, points to the secret story, perhaps, a ferocious fate. “One beach whispers love entwined. The other is the deafening voice of death.”

 

The past returns forever in a bestial swirl of brainwaves. A dust devil shoots up from oblivion & the dead caress our shattered souls in inner space.

 

We sit in the Riviera Café. Charlie dissolves/vanishes & then one by one the café & the woman & child & the beach/beaches & Greenwich Village evaporate. But where am I?




ODE

 

TO

 

OGUNQUIT

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

Is this the dreamer’s year;  

here

in this unfathomable nowhere

 

within the swirl of a soft diaphanous Un-Reality?

Now, I return to the “beautiful place by the sea”

 

my intoxicating Ogunquit

& sit

 

in Bessie’s in a nostalgia booth

where I say goodbye to the phantom youth

again & celebrate my truth

 

by a hanging lamp of subdued light

dazzling insight

 

flowing freely in my Mind’s Eye

like a child’s kite sailing in the turquoise sky

 

& in the phantasmagoria of a sensuous dream

I rediscover Perkins Cove

 

A haven/harbor

of love

 

& a metaphysical door

to transcendence/serenity

 

supreme

enchanting metamorphosis in “the beautiful place by the sea”

within the wilds of a wondrous dream

 

& at Jackie’s Too

I taste the mystical blue

 

of the sea

while a curious seagull perched on the rocks stares at me

 

& waits mindlessly,

perhaps, for the unknowable moment

the scent

 

of peace & love

by the opalescent sea

 

& on the Marginal Way

the celestial cliff-walk I travel on

 

I inhale

the wind & the sea & the prophetic day

an overflowing panorama of visions that reveal

 

the oneness/blessing

of cosmic breath

 

like gorgeous galloping zephyrs floating by

brushing my olive face & gone

 

vanishing

in a holy death

 

& sudden goodbye

 

for all must die

 

even the non-living

& still in my Mind’s Eye

 

I always see “the beautiful place by the sea”

everlasting 

 

in the sweet phantasmagoria of my vanishing

dream/my life—a delirious memory

 

rushing slowly out to sea

the faraway phantom sea



THE DOOR

 

IN

 

THE OLD HOUSE

 

IN

 

BIZARRO COUNTRY

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

(on reading Margaret Atwood’s poem “The Door”)

 

 

 

Above

& beyond the old house looms in my mind’s eye & I see the flowing cliffs & the turquoise sea below & now I watch myself rush slowly up the winding path in winter’s wind & snow to the antediluvian home that opens up for me & I enter.

 

The illuminated house is human-less, a labyrinth of gorgeous glittering rooms, a desert of opalescence without life, & within this vastness of French windows & doors, secret rooms, attics, & spiral staircases, I drift through the vacant house & discover a decrepit wooden door that does not belong here. There, on the other side of this Lilliputian threshold, I shall know.

 

The creaky door opens. I enter. A swirling blackness swallows me. I find a light switch. Click. & there is light. Down the stairs & into a dusty basement I go. & now I know.

 

In

this mirrored room, I remove my mask, breathe freely, and gaze into my past. I see folks dining in restaurants sharing food, holy breaths & air; going to work, coming home; time off-time out, summer vacations & trips, concerts, movies, & Broadway shows; or a walk in the park-lovers touching, tasting succulent lips-love sacredly entwined.

 

Now,

I taste the vastness of loss. Trapped in Bizarro Country, I gaze through a mirrored universe, longing for the past & dreaming of tomorrow’s exit.






 

 

 

THE SEASON

 

OF

 

THE APOCALYPSE

 

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

In

the season of the Apocalypse

 

I

am

 

one

human in the harrowing vastness mourning/remembering blessings lost & the cost of life

 

 

 

Often,

I sat with the others in the little park of un-reality tasting desolation through unfathomable time & into the summer of despair

 

 

 

Now

in the eerie fall moribund humans watch mutilated leaves earthbound & dying & I am here in this frightful place where folks abruptly vanished

 

I

exist in this Lilliputian space nestled in the invisible dome of death that covers all, a shattered butterfly awakening & reborn in the fall of the Apocalypse

 

Who

shall survive? Shall I?

 

I

beseech the Without End in the deep of nowhere. In the season of the Apocalypse, clinging to this time this place, I taste doubt & search for divinity

 

I

believe because I must

 

 

BILL’S

 

OTHERWORLDLY

 

OUTDOOR CAFE

 

ACROSS

 

FROM

 

CAFÉ BIZARRO

 

 

by Dr. Mel Waldman  

 

 

 

Across

the way at Bill’s Café

 

the

phantom universe opens up at midnight

 

like

a lost lacerated flower blossoming/birthing

 

in

the black hole of the unfathomable night

 

a

shattered flower—adorned with mystery & illuminated/

 

lit

up by spheres of celestial light

 

lit

up/

 

&

shooting forth from nowhere

 

 

 

&

Covid visions of Café Bizarro appear—

here/

in Bill’s otherworldly outdoor Café

 

in

the everlasting hour of no-time

 

&

so/

 

 

 

I am

 

a    

survivor gazing at the mirrored universe

 

&

oval eyes galloping across the vastness see the overflowing ocean of divinity

 

&

a purple amethyst swirls on the rim of Un-Reality

 

 

 

&

I too dangle/

 

in

Covid time & space & invisibility

 

 

 

&

from Bill’s otherworldly outdoor Café

 

across

from Café Bizarro

 

I

witness the Covid shattering

 

&

watch Café Bizarro

 

dissolve/

 

&

so do the folks inside/

 

sitting

together—

 

holding

hands that shatter

 

 &

kissing lips that melt away in the mirrored universe of yesterday

 

 

 

across

the way at Bill’s Café

 

with

some folks singing & dancing/

 

devolving

& vanishing in the back room/

 

 

 

across

the way at Bill’s Café

 

across

the way at Bill’s Café

 

across

the Covid way

 

 

 

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.











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