Dr. Mel Waldman

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 21^st 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,

beyond,

only

the

monstrous

Void

A DEATH BEFORE DEATH

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

inner space,

lost

lingering

antediluvian

brain cells

dangling

between

shattered

synapses

too,

Old Brooklyn is dead,

mourn

for

the

soothing snow

mythological childhood,

celestial landscape

constant flux

recreation;

mourn

interminably

for

the

boy-dreamer

once

was,

covered

dead time

the

coffin of the past;

mourn

for

him

this

lost spirit-love

inside

me,

the

dream-shards

dangling

still life

the

scattered sparks

divinity

frozen

the

seething fires-

the porphyry

burning time,

merciful

angels

suspended

mid-air

before

the

unending

freedom journey;

mourn incessantly

for

eleemosynary

thoughts

merging

with

celestial visions

the

child;

Yes,

mourn

for

so much-

too much

life

used

spent

buried

the

death-box

behind

me,

tomb

everlasting vastness

longing,

the

transverberation

shrinking spirit;

mourn

unendurably,

sometimes,

after

preternatural sunset,

sidereal

time,

beneath

the

mystical stars,

gaze

backwards

into

the

reconstructed landscape

resurrect

the boy

the

soothing snow

mythic childhood

within

holy

ring

purple-red stones,

prophetic

porphyry

fugitive dreams,

a death in Old Brooklyn

rushing

away

from

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

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

drink the stars outside my Brooklyn home

gazing upward at the glorious unfathomable creations,

turn inward,

look into the mirror of my meandering mind

rushing slowly

into inner space,

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

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

write my poem, my prayer

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

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

celestial conundrums that surround it

my words weep the sadness & joy of prayer

sing a cornucopia of sweeping emotions

the vastness where I shed the skin of loss

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

lovely as this poem, this prayer

as real as the invisible landscape of boundless love

where

Mother& Father live now ensconced in my beauty

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

gazing

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

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

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

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

the deep silence

THE SUDDEN DEATH

MY UNKNOWABLE FATHER

LONG AGO

LOST TIME,

STRANGER

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 1^st 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,

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.”

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

BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

by Dr. Mel Waldman

Follow me

into a beautiful chaos

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

the blessing of one

PHANTOM VOICES

FLOATING

ABOVE

BROOKLYN

SING

REVELATIONS

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

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,

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 revelations of the dead

death is the boy falling into the deep snow of mourning

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.

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 . . .

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

die too forever,

again & again

die

CONUNDRUM STREET.

by Dr. Mel Waldman

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

Conundrum Street

follow a throng

haunted humans

a cornucopia of creatures

Coney Island

taste the cool metaphysical air

inhale the raw wisdom

the burning sand & the bestial ocean

ride on the cosmic Cyclone again

the otherworldly Wonder Wheel

whirling around a chimerical omphalos

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

a trancelike state

Nathan’s

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

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

find myself in Lily Pond

Brooklyn College

until

I wander off to Brooklyn Heights

stroll along the Promenade

gaze at the Twin Towers

longer there

so it goes

Conundrum Street

time travel too

return

to the Garment Center

sit

with Father

hard

working dress salesman

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

Conundrum Street

that

swirls around the world

pirouettes across the universe

merges

time

caresses

yesterday

swallows

now

tastes tomorrow

street that never ends

even

when it comes to a cul-de-sac

bathes in frozen stillness

the

peculiar blessing of non-being

follows phantoms

through

the House of the Dead

the other side of Conundrum Street

beyond

UNFATHOMABLE RHAPSODY

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?”

HOUSE

UN-REALITY

by Dr. Mel Waldman

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

trauma-filled days

return to the vanishing house of my youth

the

House of Un-Reality

Old Brooklyn

East 7^th Street

around

the corner from Ocean Parkway

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

distant vision

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—

flood of nostalgia & fluid memories

magically with the X-ray vision of Superman

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

the now of yesterday’s dream

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

a dream

the House of Un-Reality

the boy’s oblivious

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

THE GHOSTS

BORGES

OTHERS

RUSHING SLOWLY

RISING

THROUGH

THE UNDERGROUND LABYRINTH

THE HOUSE OF UN-REALITY

By Dr. Mel Waldman

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

am not alone

this alone-ness place

here

in the nowhere of nowhere

the House of Un-Reality

am not alone

Gold

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

the

eerie omphalos

phantom center of ghosts

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

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

schism in space

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

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

BORGES

TRAPPED

THE OVAL MIRROR

BLACKNESS

by Dr. Mel Waldman

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

am Borges

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

am Borges

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

HESSE

by Dr. Mel Waldman

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

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

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

CAMUS

by Dr. Mel Waldman

Born

in the bestial abyss of poverty

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

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

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

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

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 1^st wife