Sunday, November 15, 2009

Botanical Gardens

(for Dawn S.)

I’m in a tree maze searching for a minotaur.
I’m eating a bowl of cereal pretending I’m not lactose intolerant.
I’m thinking of you thinking of me as we both pretend otherwise.

I want you.
I want you so bad.
I want to marry you and have broken children with you.

We are film noir.
We are the dingy undigested streets of Los Angeles.
We are Betty and Veronica.

I am trying desperately to make friends with a mind I have ignored since before I was a tadpole or baby cookie monster.
I am trying unsuccessfully to get you to return to a farm neither one of us seems to believe in any longer.
I know my intellect both electrifies and scares you to death and that eating in some greasy spoon with you was just the tip of a very intimate but freezing cold ice-cube.

I need to be Winslet to your DiCaprio, Hepburn to your Tracy, Eve to your Adam.
I need to stop clinging to that which does not cling back and try once and for all to be more than just somebody else’s spilled milk.
Watching movies with you was like attending Church except no one judged you and the sermons actually made sense.

Touch of Evil is playing in my head except in this version Charlton Heston’s part is played by an actual Mexican.
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to watch Chimes At Midnight without falling asleep.
I wonder who your Rosebud is and if like me you weren’t too terribly impressed with Citizen Kane but loved The Magnificent Ambersons.

You are like an open book written in some foreign language.
You are like a distant memory incapable of closure or recompense.
You are my Scopes Trial and I refuse to be anyone else’s monkey but yours.

Charles Eric Cicirella
November 15, 2009

OH MY GOODNESS!

(for Dawn F.)

You need to give yourself more credit
You need to give yourself a head start
You need to need without worrying so much about the ramifications or repercussions of giving a damn about another living, breathing human being.

I’ve had friends who were lions
I’ve had friends who were tigers
I’ve had friends who were grizzly bears
Oh my goodness I’ve had a petting zoo worth of acquaintances, lost and found in an Emerald City of supply and demand gone awry.

You need to begin the process of healing and rejuvenation
You need to need something apart from that which appears before you as a safety net or comfort zone.
You need to relocate the fairy-tale-princess held captive inside of you before all the stores close and the starry night blinks out from either lack of interest or intrigue.

I shouldn’t be telling you what you need
In truth I haven’t a clue what I need
I’m just another doggie-for-sale in a department-store-window located somewhere over-the-rainbow or around the next slow-train-bend in an upturned road of automated commerce and blues-tinged-song lyrics.

Highway 61 calls out to us like it must still call out for Zimmerman.
Highway 61 a folded tartan napkin desperately trying to locate the culture it once purged like are- you-experienced-vomit or vociferous prayer.
Highway 51 runs right by my baby’s door and that’s no secret nor is it much of a confession.

We must stop dancing so insidiously in the shoot-out-the-lights dark.
I believe we desperately need revisit the casinos inside our holy-uncompromised-selves and get in touch with this slot-machine-mentality brimming beneath a comic-book-facade we too quickly dismiss as unnecessary and undeserving of human love or animalistic desires.
We must soon recreate the first day we were born and wish upon every shooting star crucified before our tired eyes like a traveling salesman or unmitigated song and dance man.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”*

Charles Eric Cicirella
November 12, 2009

*Amazing Grace by John Newton (1725-1807)

Julianna Muse

The fire inside of me is burning to get out.
I want to eat an ice-cream sandwich.
I want to watch old movies and eat Chinese food with you in bed.

Here I am for the world to see but the world ignores me and the secrets I conceal are really not worth the paper they’re scrawled upon.
Here I am like Alice in Wonderland except I am not blonde and I do not believe in making friends with rabbits who carry a timepiece.
I am right here riding along with my dark passenger completely unaware of how vulnerable and naïve I oftentimes am.

I know you’re not a gilded lily.
I know you’re not a foreign film whose subtitles are difficult to read.
I know you’re not the Holy Bible shoved inside some motel drawer like an unpopular weather report or melting hot fudge sundae.

Julianna Muse is a rock star.
Julianna Muse is inspiration incarnate.
Julianna Muse is the most beautiful and moving prayer I will ever meditate upon.

The fire inside of me wishes it knew how to roller skate.
I want to eat a piece of pecan pie heated up with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.
I want for us to drive through a sandstorm together listening to big band music, forgetting that we ever felt alone, unwanted or undesired.

I know what you are thinking.
I know I am too smart for my own good.
It’s true I have fallen upon my own sword too many times for this to not work out.

The fire inside of me is yearning to meet your fire head-on.

Charles Cicirella
November 12, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Julianna

Climb inside the fire
What haunts you often makes you whole
Treasure buried beneath our memories.

Before I was a poet I was nothing much
Before I was a cow I was a dolphin
Before I became a star I did not matter.

Do you remember first time you sat around a campfire?
Do you like your marshmallows roasted or in hot chocolate?
Do you ever dream you are Amelia Earhart?

Climb down inside the volcano
What hurts you often makes you stronger
Cloudbursts buried above our humanity.

Before you were a vision you were out of sight
Before you were a ballerina you were a mermaid
Before you became a muse you were a fairy goddess.

Do you recall the first time you rode a bicycle?
Would you rather dream when you are sleeping or when you are awake?
Do you ever wish that everything would stop making so much sense?

Enter the friendly fire
What scares you to death often brings you back to life
The secrets behind your brilliant eyes give you away every time.

Charles Cicirella
November 10, 2009