A Photograph of the Lobotomy Room in One of the Abandoned Buildings of Pilgrim State Hospital

By Peter J. Dellolio

They performed hundreds of lobotomies 
especially during the 1940s when Doctor Freeman
promoted this new procedure that was supposed to
restore mental and spiritual tranquility 
see where they strapped them in? there
was a special set of head restraints two
assistants stood on either side of the patient
about to be transported into emotional well-being
the once gleaming porcelain table is now covered
with stains the place is caked with dust and debris
this room used to be so antiseptic
infection must have been uppermost in the minds
of those who maneuvered the ice pick shredding away
brain tissue where anxiety   
festered and tormented the morbidly
suffering, invisible soul.

Born 1956 New York City.  Went to Nazareth High School and New York University.  Graduated 1978: BA Cinema Studies; BFA Film Production.  Poetry, prose-poems, fiction, short plays, art work, and critical essays published in over 100 literary magazines, journals, and anthologies.  Poetry collections “A Box Of Crazy Toys” published 2018 by Xenos Books/Chelsea Editions; “Bloodstream Is An Illusion Of Rubies Counting Fireplaces” published February 2023 and “Roller Coasters Made Of Dream Space” published November 2023 by Cyberwit/Rochak Publishing.  His novella “The Vigil” by Type 18 Books and his novel “The Confession” by Cyberwit/Rochak have been recently released.  Chapters from his critical study of Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s Cinematic World: Shocks of Perception and the Collapse of the Rational) published in The Midwest Quarterly Literature/Film Quarterly, Kinema, Flickhead, and North Dakota Quarterly since 2006.  Dramatika Press published a volume of his one-act plays in 1983.  From this collection, The Seeker appeared in an issue of Collages & Bricolages and Stopping On One’s Way was recently published in Synchronized Chaos Journal.  Contributing editor for NYArts Magazine, writing art and film reviews;  also wrote monographs on several new artists. Co-Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Artscape2000, a prestigious, award-winning, art e-zine.  Taught poetry and art for LEAP.  He is an artist himself: https://www.saatchiart.com/peterdellolio.com.His paintings and 3D works offer abstract images of famous people in all walks of life who have died tragically at a young age. He lives in Brooklyn.