The Obsolete Professor

by Dr. Mel Waldman

The

Antediluvian Professor,

rendered obsolete by Rod Serling in a retro non-existent episode

of The Twilight Zone, without Burgess Meredith playing a librarian

condemned to death or Fritz Weaver, chancellor & tormenter in a

real-unreal TV Broadcast,

gazes

at his swirling image inside the oval mirror of otherworldly/earthly

suffering & shrieks, Why? in a sea of despair.

“Here

I am folks,”

 he utters, addressing you, his invisible audience,

chimerical readers floating in oceanic nowhere

& his broken brain drifts off in shameless boketto

& for Show & Tell, he holds a mammoth photo of

Einstein sticking his tongue out at us. 

Smiling

sardonically, the obsolete sufferer, condemned to an unfathomable fate,

whispers, “I think Old Albert was on to something real. Don’t you agree?”

Soon,

he laughs hysterically, howling with tears of joy & whipped cream on his

rosy nose until he too

sticks

out his red, hot tongue & waves goodbye.   

 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.