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BROOKLYN’S INVISIBLE MAN

Like a rat in a maze, an unwilling subject in a sinister experiment,
exposed and disposable,
I wander through
the bleak, barren
streets of
Brooklyn.

What’s my sin? Old and obsolete, someone pressed the delete key
and transmogrified me into an invisible man,
a grotesque, ghostly pariah,
broke, unemployed,
and forgotten.

No one can see me now. How did this happen? Even Kafka was kinder,
his Metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa not as Machiavellian,
not as heinous or brutally evil as invisibility,
darkened by the pitch-black, piteous
streets of Brooklyn, the
labyrinthine wasteland
I travel through.

What will I do? I can’t find the exit. I’m Brooklyn’s invisible man.
But my brothers and sisters meander across the U.S.A.;
every lost day they inhale and exhale the
murderous miasma that’s spreading
to every town and city.

Beware! Invisibility will swallow your faces too, leaving no traces of
human life. Look closely. Yes, the epidemic’s coming your way
with fringe benefits-despair, hopelessness, and desperation.
Look closely at our beautiful nation and its people.

I’m the disheveled old man you can’t see. I’ve got a long gray beard
and wild hair. If you could see me, you’d shout: “Hello, Einstein!”
I wear torn jeans and tattered sneakers and a
George Carlin T-shirt. It says:
Too Much Stuff!
I carry an old Barnes & Noble green bag. It contains all my possessions-
4 books by Dostoevsky, Hesse, Vonnegut, and the divine author
of the Bible.
Enough!

I’ve got enough except for food, water, and shelter. Homeless and invisible,
exposed and disposable, broke, unemployed, and forgotten,
I wander through the bleak,
barren streets of
Brooklyn.

What’s my sin? Does anyone out there know? Goodbye. Why?
An alien presses the delete key
and that’s the
end of
me.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 04.14.12)

editor's note: There are more of these folk wandering every city. See them or see through them, avoid mirrors. - mh

BROOKLYN SHRINK

A dark container and a human garbage bin, I breathe foul air,
inhale toxic dreamscapes, and listen to sin, the eerie
darkness of
my patients.

Many are crippled by fear, victims of trauma they witnessed,
or discovered, or experienced, life-threatening
happenings of the past; or perhaps,
they continue to be
victimized.

It’s the unholy stuff of film noir and in the boroughs of New
York City, the quotidian terrorism of the ghetto.
So what can victims do?

They come to me, the Brooklyn shrink, and slowly, shed
their nightmares. They can’t bear their dirty
secrets of rape, incest, and suicide.

They furiously exhale their psychological and physiological
poisons and breathe seething toxins of
murder and domestic violence
into my psyche and
soul,

and leave a gaping hole in my quintessence. When I inhale
their horrific tales, I feel sick, desperately ill.
Yet at the end of the day, I will
exorcise these poisons-
demons of my patients’
minds and bodies.

I must cleanse my being, for tomorrow, I will breathe the
darkness again; tomorrow, I will courageously
face the monstrous abyss of Hell
again and again.

I’m the Brooklyn shrink. Each day, I risk my life.
A fearless warrior and peacemaker,
I travel through many
wastelands on the
road to
healing.

Such is the way of a shrink and healer.
It is the journey I have
chosen.

- Mel Waldman

(added 04.14.12)

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

The view from above the cityscape is vast. It moves
and feeds my spirit. Yet my hazel eyes look south
and touch the elongated Void, an unbearable emptiness
mixed with metallic dust and human debris, rushing

toward my private mansion like never-ending waves of
desert dunes; and soon my house and I will be buried

alive.

So I look north, away from Yesterday’s wasteland and
the eerie, ineffable images imprinted in my psyche;

I look away. Yet still, I see swirling particles, once
human, sailing through the toxic air, plummeting to

earth. I can’t bear to see such evil.

I saunter off on the High Line, a defunct railroad
structure resurrected as a celestial park above the

streets of Manhattan.

My journey begins after sunrise on a sultry August
morning. I stroll across a walkway surrounded by

wildflowers.

From time to time, I stop and reflect. The freight
trains used to run here decades ago. Now, a

glorious landscape of greenery replaces the
antediluvian rail line.
Lost in reverie, I walk for hours and swallow

2

the divine dreamscape. Half-a-day seems

like a lambent flame brushing across my face
before vanishing.

I drink effervescence. Time no longer exists.
And yet, after meandering through the

labyrinth of my mind and across walkways
and promenades, I turn around and head

south.

I stop at the Chelsea Market Passage and sit
at a table. It’s almost sunset.

My eyes drift toward the Hudson River.
I wait.

I anticipate a glorious sunset. Yet
surreptitiously, I gaze at the

Manhattan skyline.

I see what isn’t there. The emptiness
eats my spirit.

The view is vast and devastating.
Each time I look back,

I die again.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 01.28.12)

editor's note: The view is amazing from up there, but the air is thin. It's hard to know if what we discern is true vision or oxygen deprivation. - mh

A FORK IN THE ROAD

Don’t call this the end, my friend. It’s just a fork in the road.
I trudge to the left, into the unknown, inhaling faith, tasting
Fate on my parched lips. I enter a desert of unbearable
heat and sin.

I accept the natural flow of events and the inevitable passage
of time. But on this lonely road, I trudge through a
pitch-black darkness. All that is familiar is behind
me. Alone, I move ahead into the secret caverns of
my mind and spirit. In search of my higher self
and Hashem, my G-d, I travel across my private
wasteland.

My psychological-spiritual quest is mirrored by my
painful journey in the real world of human flesh and
ineffable sin.

I am a Jew. I accept G-d’s Will. Yet I believe it is G-d’s
intention that I protest against the evil of the world. I am
a Jew and an agent of ethical change. And when I see
injustice, I must speak out against it. I must fight for
the good. I believe this is Hashem’s command.

Now, I see another fork in the road. I turn left. And I travel
simultaneously across two realms-moving deeper into the
holy core of my being and outwardly, on the path of
social action in the real world. In the distance,
perhaps, is the Promised Land.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 11.26.11)

editor's note: Don't have to carry a card, lift a label or stifle a stamp to speak out. So many forks require decision and forward movement, no matter the outcome - just keep speaking up to be heard in this darkness. We're all believers, called what you will. - mh

AN ANGEL IN MY GARDEN

At dawn, I speak to the whooper swan in my garden. Upstairs, my landlord is still asleep.
Below, in my basement apartment, a little home, my home and refuge from the world
of people, I see a glimmer of light. It is time. I throw on an old pair of jeans, sneakers,
a yellow T-shirt, and my mask, an antidote for the human sickness of hatred spreading
across the globe.

Leaving my subterranean haven, I climb the stairs and open the door to the universe
beyond. A gold sun is rising. I smell the sweet earth and my flaming red roses around
the bend. I trudge toward my garden, which is not really mine. Still, it belongs to me. I
nurture it. The old lady who owns it allows me to feed it love with my poetic words and
whispered songs and soulful hands.

I reach my private Heaven and see the familiar whooper swan, an angel in my garden.
“Hello,” I whisper to the majestic white bird with black and yellow bill. The mammoth
creature smiles at me. I move closer and hide within its eight-foot wingspan, my small,
skeletal body hunched over, almost reaching the earth.

“My old olive-colored flesh is tired.” The white angel hugs me with its massive wings,
longer than the little garden I care for. “When will you take me away? I need to fly with
you and soar to the Heavens.”

Now, I listen to the fierce flutter of wings, and a vast sadness consumes my soul. “Don’t
leave!” I shriek silently. But the whooper swan runs away, across the barren street as it
ferociously beats its mammoth wings and sails high toward a gold sun.

Perhaps tomorrow, it will return to my garden. I will speak once more to the whooper
swan and it will serenade me. And together, we will fly away, vanishing from the earth,
in search of a celestial home.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 08.12.11)

VANISHED AGAIN

How many times did I vanish? Well, of course, you wouldn’t
know. Even I can’t recall each time. But in the past decade, I
disappeared at least 3 times. And I wonder-did anyone notice
my absence? I wonder.

For almost a year, I hung out at the Willburg Café on Grand
Street in Williamsburg. I ate grilled chicken and wrote, tried
to keep my arteries unclogged and my brain overflowing
with ideas. Didn’t say much, I just watched my
unconscious let loose and guide me.

It’s August with its dog day afternoons. The sprawling sun’s
oppressive and sweat cascades down my forehead and cheeks.
One sultry afternoon last week, I said goodbye to the café.
Didn’t tell anyone. I ate my healthy meal and scribbled
a few lines. Then I sauntered off.

Now, you can find me some days at Joe Junior’s on 3rd Ave,
Manhattan. I’m the fellow with the long gray beard, gray
hair, and hazel eyes. Just look for me, if you wish,
before I vanish again. But you know, the modern
philosopher-the man in the street, often cites an
old cliché:

Life goes on. Yeah. That’s true, especially after I’m dead.
A new crop of young folks will appear. And other
baby boomers will pass away. Yeah. But you
know that’s a bitch. I mean, the earth will
keep spinning and the youth of tomorrow
will make love and children will be born.

But will anyone remember I once existed?
Will you?

- Mel Waldman

(added 08.12.11)

A DARK JOURNEY

At night, I ride the train to nowhere,
trapped in a tomblike cattle car,
crushed by the living dead;

I smell the foul odor of feces, urine,
and fear; taste the boiling heat of
sweat and tears cascading down
the shriveled, shrunken faces
of black terror; inhale the
claustrophobic,
choking,
toxic
air;

Every night I ride this train,
and each time, the
unbearable smell
of death clings
to my skin;
I touch the
dying;

I vomit on the corpses that
surround me; and I
shriek unholy
sounds of
despair;

I survive the trip. I arrive at
Auschwitz. I trudge across
a ramp that takes me into
the camp. Ahead of me,
I see two rows-one to
the left and one to
the right.

I pray to Hashem, my G-d.
An S.S. officer points
to the right.

Those who go to the left
are destined for the
gas chambers.

In this dark dream, I’m
young and strong,
blessed with
emotional
strength
too.

I wake up. I’m an old man
now. An S.S. officer
would order me to
go to the left
and to the
showers
.
if Hitler’s
war

began today. Of course, it
couldn’t happen again.
Surely, we have
learned from
the past.
Right?

I read about the rise of anti-Semitism.
It can’t be true, not today. Yet
throughout the world,
hatred of the Jews
metastasizes;

Neo-Nazi groups flourish, and
terrorists feed on bigotry,
targeting Jews,
Americans,
and other
innocents.

And thus, at night, I’m buried in an
unbearable dream, a dark journey

to nowhere-a one-way trip to
Auschwitz, across Time and
Space.

Yet when I wake up, the
nightmare continues;
the death camps are
just around the
corner,

unless we learn from
the past, unless we
learn;

I pray to Hashem,
my G-d.
I pray.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 06.25.11)

GOLD EYES

Gold eyes bathed in sunlight, changing colors,
a human kaleidoscope dancing with the
sprawling sun;

soothing eyes, compassionate spheres
of energy;

perceptive eyes, omniscient
and visionary;

majestic eyes, perched on a
noble face;

I remember her soft, expressive face, her
enchanting eyes eerily encircling me,
shielding me from evil,
and revealing love;

Her celestial spirit of courage, joy, and
hope still inspires me, breathing life
and beauty into my lonely flesh.

I lost her 46-years ago. Yet she lives inside my
being, nestled inside my secret mansion where
my true self resides. And I exist within her
dream, her poetic vision of me.

When the rushing, tumultuous waves of my
existence shatter my faith, a tattered veil
that covers me, she speaks gently to me,
calms my wounded holy center,
my sacred place, ripped apart
by tragedy, and still, she
soothes me, takes me
to a quiet place,
guides me,
with love.
She is my proof that Hashem, my G-d
exists.

She is my Jewish mother who dances
ecstatically up and down the
Tree of Life
and across
the river
of

my spirit. And she feeds me, blesses
me with her beauty, her love, her
joy.

She died too soon at the age of 50.
But she left me her sacred place.
We meet in this holy
dreamscape.

Whenever I’m lost, we meet.
I protest against Hashem
and deny His existence.
She laughs, caresses
the tattered veil
that covers me,
takes out her
sewing kit,
and sews.

Soon, I possess a silky veil as smooth as
a baby’s skin.

I am blessed. And suddenly, I wear
her gold eyes. I see the universe
as she does. I share her visions.
I’m touched by the divine.

- Mel Waldman

(added 06.25.11)

THE END

It’s coming for you. On this night, the wind steals your breath. Far away and around the corner, fires feast on forests, encircling beautiful barren woods, desiccated and old and exposed to the vicissitudes of nature and Darwinian law. And rushing forth from the sea, mammoth tides flood the sands on abandoned beaches stretching far, it seems, to eternity.

It’s coming for you. It’s your time, and nature’s justice. You can’t escape. A western cottonmouth comes out of hibernation and travels across the same road it slithered along last year. But now, it doesn’t make it. Lifeless, it lies still by the side of the road. On another trail, rattlesnakes that left their underground lair in search of food come to the end, a dark, breathless vanishing point on a dark road.

It’s coming for me too. It’s my time, perhaps. I’m not sure. I’ve got things to do and plans that might keep me busy for at least another decade. My body’s old but my mind’s fresh and young and vibrant. I’m not ready to go. Don’t think I’ll ever be ready. I protest. But the Lady comes into my home and gazes at me. I look away.

I scurry out of the house and vanish into the crowds. I hide amongst the living and the living dead. I spend a few hours in the Public Library on 42nd Street. Later, I visit the King Tut exhibition that enchants and thrills me. Then I go on the half-price line and get theater tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera. After the show, I stroll along Broadway.

Suddenly, the wind howls and I’m rushing through the labyrinth heading home. A storm’s coming and I need to lie in my king-size bed and rest. But tonight, I won’t make it. The Lady’s here with me in the wind. She followed me wherever I went. Guess I’m not alone, not tonight. I stop abruptly and turn around. She smiles wickedly at me, her dark, eerie eyes holding me in her universe.

I rush to the Lady. Now, she stands in the middle of traffic. She waits for me. I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve got a rendezvous tonight with her. Now, on Broadway, beneath the sprawling, glittering lights, she’s my date. She’s mine. And I belong to her, perhaps, for all eternity.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 04.17.11)

FREE

I watch the violence on CNN in my Brooklyn home.
When it’s too much to bear, I change the channel.
But I care. I feel their pain already. The Libyan
people have touched the ghostly life force I call my
soul. And so I speak to them and their oppressor.

I eat your sadness. I cry. I drink the blood of war.
I die. Why?

I shriek the voices of the oppressed.
Goodbye, Qaddafi.

The dead can’t rest for vultures fly above. They smell
the rotting flesh below. My frenzied eyes swallow the
sprawling dreamscape of despair.

My battered brain tastes the surging waves of red sand
and the scattered human debris in the wasteland of the
desert.

Peaceful protestors died here so others could
be free.

I shriek the voices of the oppressed.
Goodbye, Qaddafi.

I can’t bear the brutal finality. When strangers suffer,
so do I. Why?

We, the people of the earth, are forever connected. We
share the sacred spirit of creation and destruction. We
pray for freedom. We rage against injustice. After
freedom prevails, we pray for peace.

I shriek the voices of the oppressed.
Goodbye, Qaddafi.

- Mel Waldman

(added 04.17.11)

GOODBYE

Goodbye.

Nanoseconds dance in the micro-universe. Perhaps, they speak to me, whispering secrets of Existence. Yet I can’t hear their murmurs. I can’t see their miraculous dance or poetic metamorphosis. And when they say goodbye, I don’t cry, I don’t respond. Yet in the dark caves of my psyche, I sense the inevitable change, the loss, the death.

Goodbye. How many times must I say this soul-wrenching word?

Nanoseconds whirl around a subatomic universe, merging with other nanoseconds until they vanish within swirling seconds destined to disappear too. All things end.

Goodbye. Within Space-Time, all things living and non-living inevitably say goodbye.

Seconds swirl around my being, enclosing and covering me with Space-Time, shielding me from other realities too frightening to imagine, until they connect and unite in the universe of minutes. Letting go of their fragile identities, they die in order to be reborn inside a vast sea of being and becoming.

Goodbye. I can’t bear this word that rips my soul into a thousand shards of barren wasteland. But it’s the way of human life that always begins and ends. Each goodbye is a sliver of death and dying. Within Space-Time, there’s no escape from the valley of the shadow of death. Inevitably, we die.

And so it goes. Minutes flow into hours and vanish. Hours merge and become days, disappearing in the relentless rush of time. Days slip into weeks and weeks into months like the antediluvian snake that slithers across the Garden of Eden. It glides stealthily and yet, like the falcon, flying furiously across a black sky with its long pointed wings and its short curved beak, it hunts and kills its prey. The dark flow of time seeks you and me and all creatures that exist and live in Space-Time. Ultimately, we are its quarry.

Goodbye. Now, the months merge and vanish within the dark years of Yesterday. Looking back to the beginning of my life seems an endless chore. That’s the way of human life and death. I’m not ready to say goodbye. Yet the end might come tomorrow. Or it might arrive decades from this poignant moment of reflection. I accept the dark way of human life. And still, I protest. I need more time, much more time to be and become and create.

So it goes. I’m a young old man of contradictions. I cherish my paradoxes and caress my will to live. It’s nestled in my mysterious soul and simultaneously whirls around my being. I’m not ready to say goodbye to life. But it’s up to G-d to know when.

Goodbye until you read my next creation. Every poem or story is a new beginning. Every word is a piece of my soul I wish to share with you.

Goodbye.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 02.26.11)

TRAUMA MAN

Who am I? The other calls me Trauma Man. I hold shards of ineffable evil inside my psyche, a broken cauldron of boiling anguish. And I mourn for my shattered faith.

Once, I possessed absolute trust in the universe and Hashem, my G-d. Throughout my adolescence, the power of my faith protected me. Then I lost my last strands of strength, for my faith was severed from my being, like Samson’s hair cut off by the seductive Delilah. One day, a beautiful part of me died. And after this first death, I died again and again.

Now, I seize vanishing glimpses and vestiges of my ancient beliefs.

The Darkness calls me Trauma Man, for I hold it inside my Jewish soul, and slowly, insidiously it eats my Spirit, and soon, I look like an Auschwitz victim, naked and emaciated, only ghostly bones with a mask of death.

I no longer look human. But I am a person. Still, they say I resemble a ghost of Auschwitz who inhaled Zyklon B. After his death, his corpse was fed into an unholy fire. The Nazis waited for him to disappear inside the crematorium, his body defiled and humiliated before, during, and after death.

The other calls me Trauma Man. A dreamer, he has visions of beauty. My alter ego, he is the part of me who seemed to die over four decades ago. Yet he still exists in a corner of my wounded soul.

At night, I listen to the lonely silence that stretches across my dreamscape. I listen and sometimes he speaks to me about the splendid universe and Hashem, my G-d. And although I cling to the Darkness, he reveals holy truths. He evokes ancient memories. And for a few seconds, I recapture the faith I once possessed.

The Darkness calls me Trauma Man. I mourn for my shattered faith. Yet from time to time, my twin speaks to me and feeds me hope and an iota of faith. I eat his gifts. And my soul begins to heal.

They call me Trauma Man. But I am blessed, even though the Darkness consumes me. I believe. I sit quietly and wait for Hashem, my G-d.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 01.03.11)

THE DARKNESS BATHED IN TRAUMA

My name is Darkness. I am the Darkness bathed in trauma.
And I live inside the human beast.

My twin is Light. He hides from me in the sun, for I’m his
alter ego, the Darkness touched by evil soaked in trauma.

He trembles before me, for he fears I will destroy him. Yet
if he flies away and joins the flamingos above the Altiplano,
South America’s high plain, so close to the Heavens but
brushing the multicolored faces of Hell, he will be
damned forever.

Without the Darkness, there is no Light.
Without the Darkness, there is no Life.

I must bless the Light, or he will die
beneath the merciless sun.

Look! I see vicuñas rush across the Uyuni accompanied by
giant shadows of themselves, Darkness, a fierce presence,
split again and again into mystical forms in
metamorphosis and motion sailing across
the salt flat with its 3-foot twins
soaring through a surreal
landscape, vast and
eerily beautiful.

The fugitive Light flies away and joins the flamingos above
the Altiplano. Yet I’ve chased him across continents to
save him from damnation.

My name is Darkness. I am the Darkness bathed in trauma.
I’ve come to bless the Light. I see vicuñas dart across
the salt flat, divine dancers gliding through the
dreamscape.

In this timeless place, a vast wilderness of salt, I bless
the Light. And here in the Altiplano, close to the
Heavens, amidst the fire and ice and
windswept terrain,
we are one.

- Mel Waldman

(added 01.03.11)

SACRED EVOLUTION

they say we don’t need G-d,
for Darwin’s theory of
evolution explains the
whole enigmatic
process;

but I say you can mix chance
in a cauldron of creation with
the wondrous permutations of
beautiful possibilities and
random recipes of mysticism
and metaphysics and magic
and
give it billions or trillions of
opportunities to create the
human body and human
mind and consciousness and
awareness of mortality and
all the creatures of this
universe and time/space and
all the eloquent principles of
math and science and all the
great masterpieces of art and
literature and I say it just
won’t happen.

the whole enigmatic process of
life is beyond human
comprehension; evolution cannot
explain it, survival of the fittest
is unfit-it can’t decipher the
mysteries of the mind and universe;
existence and being can’t be
understood; I say there’s got to be
a supernatural design, a preternatural
consciousness-intelligence that shapes
chance into purpose; a sacred evolution

that guides all beings and points us
toward beauty and love, creativity
and transcendence; a sacred
evolution that is the matrix of a
meaningful coincidence-Jungian
synchronicity, and serendipity;

and although philosophers and
logicians have dismissed the
notion of G-d, I strongly doubt
that a universe of chaos and
chance mixed with evolution
sufficiently explains our
reality; I believe we’re
part of a mysterious
design that moves
us closer to our
mission on earth;
and within the
invisible
microcosm of
atoms and
electrons and
molecules and
cells and
within all
beings and
non-beings,
a secret
designer
dwells;
and I
choose
to call
Him
G-d.

- Mel Waldman

(added 11.17.10)

MY CONVERSATIONS WITH DEATH: AN OBJECT OF TERROR AND CURIOSITY

I speak to You each night. Don’t know your face, but I sense
your presence. My body screams with pain. I’m that
horrific creature in Munch’s The Scream. Yes,
that dark ghost of a ghost screaming into
the whirling, swirling
Void.

Most of the time, I can tolerate this agony. When I can’t,
I take one painkiller late at night. Sometimes, I need
the pill only once a month. Yet there are times,
I need it every night. My doctor says I’ve
got episodes of intolerable pain.
I suppose so.

And my heart is weak too. Periodically, my high blood
pressure sails out of control, docking in a bay
of human debris, a wet wasteland of
death and decay.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I desperately crave life,
the rhythmic breaths of hope and creation,
holy inhalations and exhalations,
the metaphysical mysteries
of Being and
Existence.

In my darkest moments, I still cling to Eros,
my life force. I’m not ready to say
goodbye. Don’t wish to leave
this strange universe,
not now, perhaps,
never.

Of course, I know I can’t stay here forever.
It’s just a wish, a fantasy, not reality.
But I’ve got books to write and
patients to save and heal.
I need more time to
complete my
life’s work.
Time!

I must confess that I’m terrified of death.
Occasionally, I’m curious too.
Sometimes, I believe in
G-d and an afterlife.
But I also fear
that death is
the end.
Finis!

This is my ultimate wish. At the end of my
life, whenever that is, and I don’t want
to know the exact date and time,
I want Death to visit and
soothe me; I wish to
leave the earth
courageously,
without fear,
without
regrets.
I wish
to say

goodbye with dignity and inner peace.
I ask Death to visit me several
times before the final moment.
I ask Death to soothe my
soul. I ask that She
come as a little
girl or boy,
frightened
and alone
and

abandoned. She will beg me to hold her.
Like a good father, I will rescue her
from her darkest fears. I will
hold and rock her and
soothe her troubled
soul.

When I have forgotten all my horrific
fears and my only concern is the
welfare of this poor child, I
will let go of life; slowly,
painlessly, I will let go.

She will kiss me on my forehead and
gently hold me too. At peace,
I will travel to another
place. Without fear,
I shall be very
curious and
free.

- Mel Waldman

(featured in the poetry forum 11.17.10)

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