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.