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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue of cc&d (v241) (the February 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

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Black Mask Hanging High
Righteous Man
Gushing Guilt

Mel Waldman

The ghostly man, a black mask of despair,
alone,
invisible
in an alien world,

sits in a claustrophobic room choking on
anguish,
&
emptiness,

breathless,
in a private tomb.

 
The skeletal man wears a pockmarked, gaunt face.
A scarred specter, he looks in the broken mirror
his crippled hand clutches.

He sees nothing.
He is nothing.

A ghost of a ghost, he sits hunched over in a wooden
chair and stares into sterile space.

 
Inside the shattered mirror he holds,
a black flower of non-existence

rises
from the Garden of Dead Roses

& beckons.
In a few seconds, he will cancel tomorrow’s appointment.
He will not say goodbye to the righteous man who belongs

to another universe. But he will anoint his holy spirit
with gushing guilt, leaving phantom traces of

Hell
forever in

the psyche of a young therapist.

 
And so he stands up, looks up at the ceiling, and prepares his
creation, an instrument of Judgment.

Now, he mounts the rocking chair, rises, slips his head into
the dangling noose, kicks the wood away and lets it rock, as

he sails and swings through the air, a black mask hanging high,
the life force squeezed from his flesh and spirit,

 
crippled hand opening up,
broken glass dropping

slowly
into
a

desolate abyss,

 
celestial juice dripping into eternity
with a final gasp of air,

righteous man gushing guilt
tomorrow.

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