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Brooklyn: Invisible Man

Mel Waldman

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.

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