"The Storm"

By Mel Waldman

After the storm of evil, we lost our last iota of innocence.

It seems like yesterday, when the beauty of the earth, sea,
and heavens vanished, and even the vast, mysterious view
of azure skies and the turquoise ocean could not move us
anymore.

The war has severed our souls and now we can’t remember
the pristine hopes, the antediluvian dreams, the cup of absolute
faith we drank in our youth.

Dark visions consume and devour us, like a sleek peregrine falcon
gliding high over a burning city and suddenly swooping down on us
at 175 miles an hour, smashing and splitting our skulls, eating our flesh,
and spitting out our souls on fire, releasing them to the cannibalistic
universe.

We remember. We were covered in white dust and human debris, and we
wandered through the toxic streets in disbelief, wondering why we were still
alive.

We tasted war when we swallowed this storm of evil. And now we are
possessed, although we sometimes forget.

It seems like yesterday, for we always return to the beginning, forgetting
again and again what we learned so long ago, after we left the Garden,
perhaps believing it could never happen again.

Now, when we smell the storm of evil lingering in our nostrils, with
every toxic breath we take, we make believe it will suddenly vanish
or that it does not exist at all, even as the peregrine falcon sails down
with its long, pointed wings and eats our souls.

Even then, we look away and forget, finding peace in a sea of amnesia
and a vacant tomorrow.

Dr. Mel Waldman, of Brooklyn, New York, is a psychologist, poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines. A past winner of the literary Gradiva Award in Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in literature. He is currently working on a mystery novel inspired by Freud’s case studies. His mystery novel, Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, or www.amazon.com.

NOTE: The image that accompanies this poem comes from a news service report on a monstrous swirling storm that is churning at Saturn's south pole. Reuters reports that this is the first time a truly hurricane-like storm has been detected on a planet other than Earth. It is difficult to imagine, but the storm that is raging on the giant, ringed planet is about 5,000 miles wide, measuring roughly two thirds the diameter of Earth, with winds howling clockwise at 350 mph.