Mel Waldman- Three Poems

D.O.A.

    

Dog days

drift

into death-soaked August nights-

deliver

sizzling summer heat

&

the burnt offering

of

boiled human brain roasting in hellfire.

Damned,

beneath a seething canopy of sin

I am D.O.A.

in

the steamy night

when

my skin opens up

&

my mask comes off

&

the monster

pops out-

peek-a-boo

&

it’s time to kill & die

for

on

death-soaked August nights

the monster

inside me

is born

&

I am

D.O.A.

INSIDE,

OUTSIDE

 

Inside one,

outside the other

here,

not there

now,

not then

inside the darkness,

outside the light

Inside,

outside

outside & into,

inside & out of

inside the  soul case

& out of the vastness

outside the solar system

& into my mortal body

inside the soul case

into the spirit world & the invisible universe

that is

the unendurable suffering of my soul

it is

I know

it is

my soul

because

I suffer

OMPHALOS

Blood-red omphalos on the side of the road

almost hidden

behind the mutilated moribund trees,

You reveal only a Lilliputian arc of yourself,

glowing religious stone & holy presence that

you are,

& still, I feel you

& know you,

in my strange unfathomable vision-

in a glimmer of celestial light

coming forth

from the center of the earth or perhaps,

the cosmological hub of an unearthly place

of my own beautiful & grotesque creation

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 LIQUID IMAGINATION, A NEW ULSTER, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, THE BROOKLYN VOICE, BRICKPLIGHT, THE BITCHIN’ KITSCH, CRAB FAT MAGAZINE, DEAD SNAKES, SKIVE MAGAZINE, ODDBALL MAGAZINE, ON THE RUSK, 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, 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.