PANDEMIC NOIR
INSIDE
AN OTHERWORLDLY OCEANIC DREAM
by
Dr. Mel Waldman
Pandemic Noir
inside
an
otherworldly oceanic
dream
possesses
me
&
drowns my brain in
the bestial reign of trauma
&
crossing the Bridge
of Bizarro Country
I
see familiar ghosts on the other side of Un-Reality
sitting
at a round table
&
a disembodied voice
bellows, “Why?”
In
this fable Thornton
Wilder, the host of this diverse gathering, reads a line
from The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
Albert Camus
nods, mutters esoteric
words about The Plague to a stranger
&
shrieks, “Goodbye.”
Hermann Hesse
utters, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, & Demian,
reflecting,
“Where is the
divine?”
Harry Houdini
confesses, “I never
came back. This is my sin.”
Phantoms
vanish
Others
appear
as
I cross the fantastic
bridge that grows unendingly
&
now Franz Kafka recites
an enigmatic line
from
The Trial
about
Josef K
&
cries out for Dostoevsky
while
the other side rushes
far away
Shall
I ever be free
everlastingly
crossing the eerie
Bridge of Bizarro Country?
On
the other side
I
see Sigmund Freud & his patient the Wolf Man
&
Carl Jung & Hermann
Hesse
&
bless Viktor Frankl
who utters, Man’s Search for Meaning.
Will
I find some peace of mind?
Nearby
the beat poets Gregory
Corso, Jack Kerouac, & Lawrence Ferlinghetti
recite
iconoclastic poetry.
&
Richard Pryor, George Carlin, & Redd Foxx
crack
sparkling biting jokes
that make the City Lights poets guffaw & ask for more.
&
William S. Burroughs,
Carlos Castaneda, & Albert Einstein wave to me
as
I sempiternally cross the Bridge of Chance or Destiny.
Shall
I ever reach the other
side?
Shall
I awaken reborn or die on the Bridge of Bizarro Country
each night again & again?
Listen
to the uncanny word that echoes throughout the universe
like
the sacred mantra OM.
Far
away on the other
side of Un-Reality Thornton Wilder & Franz Kafka
shriek Why?
drilling
a hole in the soul of humanity
&
the sacred word pirouettes
everlastingly
across
the Bridge of Chance
or Destiny in an amaranthine ballet
MY
BROOKLYN VIEW
OF
A
STARRY NIGHT
DURING
LOCKDOWN
by Dr. Mel Waldman
.
On
a starry night in Brooklyn during lockdown
1st year of Covid’s Un-Reality
I
come home
after
work in
the Healing Room a tomb
of loss & love
&
gaze at the stars
through
a long rectangular window
in my Serenity Room
facing
an antediluvian tree
my Tree of Angels like Betty Smith’s Tree
of Heaven
&
I see how beautiful the universe is how
magnificent & vast & forgiving
&
after death
overflowing
with love & rebirth
here on Earth & in Heaven
STARRY NIGHT
IN
OGUNQUIT
THE
BEAUTIFUL PLACE
BY
THE SEA
by Dr. Mel Waldman
Starry Night
in Ogunquit
the
beautiful place by the sea
&
bathed in serenity
I
gaze at the stars
standing
midway on the Marginal Way
the
otherworldly cliff walk
glorious
in its gorgeous galloping beauty & grandeur
above
the bestial rocks & overlooking
the omnipotent sea
&
bathed in serenity
I
gaze at the stars
&
talk to the magical universe
while
listening to the whirling waves
crushing the rocks
&
crashing into inner space smashing un-reality & waiting for the
tempest to arrive
Fully Alive
&
prescient
like the preternatural ocean
below
I
know the storm
is coming
but
bathed in serenity I gaze at the stars & see transcendentally
The Tempest
will
come
& go & the universe will flow deathlessly after the vanishing
after death
VAN GOGH’S
VIEW
OF
THE STARRY NIGHT
THROUGH
THE IRON-BARRED WINDOW
IN
THE ASYLUM
by Dr. Mel Waldman
.
Van Gogh
sits
in
his Lilliputian room of madness
unblessed
in
the
Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in
Saint Rémy
celestial
monastery of yesterday
&
through the iron-barred window
facing
east
he
gazes at the stars sketching The Starry
Night & other beauties again & again
transforming
the
beast within
&
transcending mortal suffering
If
only we could
tell him who he really is
his
only sin not seeing his beautiful divinity
&
so Van Gogh
gazes
at the stars
&
shall paint The Starry Night
in the studio below
with
the cypress tree & Venus to its right
embracing
death oblivious of the post-mortem destiny
that
waits everlastingly for him
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.
