NEW POEMS

GHOSTS 2008

(for Jim Volk & Albert Ayler)

Angels speak to us through your otherworldly music. Otherworldly not just another catch phrase when it catches us off guard and do you remember Irv’s Deli on Coventry? Of course you do. Of course that which occurs today could very well go unrealized tomorrow. When I finally got around to calling, her number had been disconnected and she had flown the coop like some cooing pigeon or restless terrorist. I’m not kidding. The last time I told a joke her mid section was still taut and my loneliness did not roar so loudly in my Bedouin ears. When we are alone in your upstairs studio I don’t need to make sense of anything because it all comes through so effortlessly and I prefer to forget everything including my own name as we float together down a translucent staircase. I desired a breakthrough I could call my very own, something that aligned itself with the Sun and did not treat Icarus so shabbily. I wanted to believe in something before it was too late and all the night-owl-worms recognized their alibis as worthless currency. What else can or should be done as this civilization does a belly flop into a Beverly Hills swimming pool drained of H2O over two thousand years ago. Rome still smolders as America gets its clock cleaned by the Chinese and what can any of us really expect when a sense of entitlement gets the best of us with every secondhand breath we take. I’m not a lover or a fighter. I’m not a romantic or a recluse. I’m not a Christian nor am I a very good Jew. I am a ghost haunting a doppelganger writing something possibly resembling poetry and you are a mystic very few will ever truly understand because the doctors prescribing all the really good medicine have lost their nerve and their prescription pads.

Charles Cicirella
Saturday, December 13, 2008 3:40 PM

Desert

(for Lori)

I was born in the desert.
Everyday I wake up in the desert.
I’ve only ever felt at peace in the desert.

Walking through the desert like walking through a field of mirrors.
Your mind plays tricks on you when you are in the desert.
Signs all around you when you are hitching through a dark desert night.

I remember the fish sandwich I paid for with the last three dollars to my name.
The rest area I stayed in for nearly three days before being rousted by the cops.
Thomas Merton befriending me and how writing shielded me from the cold.

I look into your answers and all I hear is the desert calling across long distances.
The Church a sanctuary for sinners, the desert a sanctuary for murderers and romantics.
I try to tell you some truth but it all comes out wrong because the suburbs kill.

You were born in the desert.
Everyday you go to sleep dreaming of the desert.
The only place you feel safe is in the desert.

Charlie
Friday, December 05, 2008 2:18 AM

Savior’s Tears

Standing in the rain
It’s cold
I am scared

Wind keeps me company
Cuts through my malaise
I wish I was stoned

Mother Nature answered my personal ad
I couldn’t believe my luck
I am busted and I have been blessed

Savior’s tears cover me like choice cuts of aged beef
You know there was a time I wouldn’t have understood
I am humorless

Praying in the snow
It’s freezing
I am happy

Charlie
Friday, December 05, 2008 1:50 AM