Siri

Mystery

Mysterious

Mischievous

Ancient

New soul

Expert witness

We pop

Crackle

Snap

Dancer

Electric

Brain food

I am

We are

United

Whimsical

Capricious

Perfect catch

Long distance runner

Star sprinter

Meerkat purring

Basking in the sun

I’ve swallowed the moon

Promised Land beckons...

Charles Eric Cicirella

12/16/13

Resurgence

why can’t they hear it

are they deaf? blind?

why are so many

resistant to change?

I love the seasons you

pass through like a

private investigator

rummaging through

old steamer trunks

looking for a phone

number that was

written on the back

of a matchstick

I remember Casablanca

Bob and I remember

Dooley Wilson singing,

singing for you like

you were Humphrey Bogart

I know you wanted to be him

stranded in some petrified forest

making time with the waitresses

like they actually understood you

and knew what it meant to be a legend

and not give a shit

you have always told us where

it was at and you still are telling us

why it is important to take a stand

because it’s not dark yet, but it’s

getting there and I’m afraid to let go

Bob I’m afraid you won’t remember

how we sheltered each other from the

impossible storms in both our imaginative

and poetic visions; how we both agreed

Vincent knew what he was up against

and that if he hadn’t taken his life we would

not be as acquainted with our own desires nor

would we give so much of a damn

the paint pulls us in as we turn our backs on

pressure cooker romance and all the self-medicated

responses she attempted before I convinced her

it’s no good being a victim when your back is

up against the wall anyhow and anyway you

slice it you are still going to have to enter the

eye of the storm before it is too late and all

the usual suspects are rounded up and later

dispensed with because every one of them

had a foolproof alibi, everyone but you Bob

your alibi was almost unbelievable in all its

deliberate and desperate fury

I wish we could shield each other from contempt

and I wish so much more was understood without

words or gestures of faith that faithless pedestrians

move through like ghosts with no fixed destination …

Charles Cicirella 5.6.03 (For Bob Dylan)

DYLAN

I was fourteen years old

Had an old beat up vinyl copy

Of Highway 61 Revisited from the library

I can remember the first time I attempted

Playing it and how the foreign sounds pouring

From the speakers pushed me down

Beneath subterranean landscapes

Six months later I revisited that same copy of

Highway 61 now long over-due, this time though

The foreign sounds did not seem so foreign

Matter a’ fact it was the only thing I discovered

Myself relating to

From this moment on nothing has spoken louder

Or clearer or truer, from this moment on The Doors

And The Beatles just would not do

I needed an edge that could redefine my boundaries

I sought an oblivion that desired to be consumed

And a sharp intellect that left phonies Blowin’ In The

Wind

Dylan opened a door to my subconscious long boarded

Up by the mongrel dogs who teach and this “Equality,”

He spoke of I did not need to completely comprehend

Because he has this revolutionary way of

Bringing it all back home

These days when I discover myself seeking solace or communion

Or whatever gets me through the night, these days when nothing

Makes much sense I turn toward his voice and the compassion

And joy made real by this myth, and this song and dance man.

Charles Cicirella 3:01 PM 5.22.2002

Commissioned by Ron House to be read at Used Kid’s Records

For Bob Dylan’s 61rst. B-Day!

WILCO!

(For Dan Gallows)

Dan Klute

What a hoot

Gets it right down to his Blue Suede shoes

Dan Klute

What a hoot

He’s the cat’s pajamas of drivers and understands what it means to change lanes without restraint

Dan Klute

What a hoot

He brings earnestness to the word earnest in this twenty first century of divine decrepitude

Dan Klute

What a hoot

No one here gets out alive except for those chosen few who do not worry themselves over such things as death and the sins of deadly omission

Dan Klute

What a hoot

Let’s leave the leavers and get what has always been ours for the taking!

Charles Cicirella

11/25/2013

Music Box

(For Molly Andrews)

We begin wrestling in the mud like idiot savants and adolescent Gods. And nothing matters until the page is turned and the songbook is filled with stardust.

She introduced me to a Gospel Train when playing the autoharp for us on McMillen Ave. It was the year of who knows when and I am a better man for everything that was created and destroyed in those misplaced and unidentified times.

We end wrestling with the mythos of resurrection like wise old fools and hungry forsaken devils. And everything makes a difference when we focus on the breath of life existing inside of us.

Molly Andrews is a harmonic convergence whose birth keeps us all eternally young and infinitely foolish.

Charles Cicirella

8/7/2013

Nocturne

(For Veronica)

I am lost in her music.

I yearn to get lost in her hard rain.
I wished upon a star and her eyes appeared open and wanting.

I am found in her grace.

I am frozen in space, the Earth’s gravitational pull refuses to pay any attention to me.
I positioned myself as a Romeo and fell as flat as the Earth was once believed to be.

We must forge ahead.

We must adapt to changing conditions because evolution will not wait for us to catch up.
We must see through remnants of lost love and never forget that soul mates do exist even though they may not be all that usual in these unusual days and nights.

I desire to be in the same room with her the next time her heart dances upon the keys.

I long to hold her turbine body as she sets the wheels in motion, ultimately setting us both free.
I wished upon a star and she appeared before me peaceful and on fire like Joan of Arc.

Charles Cicirella

10/11/2013

This

(For Rick Polhamus)

This is a new beginning because I know you understand what is meant by a new beginning.

This is never ending because I know you understand what is meant by something that never ends.
And when everything began making sense is the precise moment the writing on the wall vanished.
And when nothing any longer makes a lick of sense, that is when we must get our hands dirty and completely eradicate the ghosts in our rolling stone hearts.

I was brave and not afraid to admit it until realizing my bravery was in fact cowardice sold to the highest blind and deaf bidder.

I was strong and not afraid to admit it until realizing my strength was weakness and I was getting nowhere fast walking around in chain metal.
I was bulletproof and not afraid to admit it until realizing I had been shot full of holes long before I had even been born, and dying is too often seen as no big deal when the life you are living is not really living.

New beginnings are sculpted from clay and honest to God possibility.

When meeting you for the first time and every time since I know I am meeting a true believer who understands to preach the word of God, one must first live in God.
There are never ending mysteries taking shape all around once we shatter the mirror images in our love sick eyes and again understand that our souls do indeed carry the weight.
When talking with you on the phone I always feel renewed inside and I think it has everything to do with the sound of your laughter and how it breaks free of convention and brings me back to the Garden.

Charles Eric Cicirella

9/15/2013

New Orleans: Sex & Death

(For Bob Dylan)

Break through the cold
Reject impermanence  
Rejoice!

We’re immortal

Embrace transience
Rebel!

Stranger in a strange land

Brushstrokes conjuring up ghosts
Reverberate!

His paintings vibrate

His paintings howl
His paintings soak up the blood on the killing floor.

Dance in the white flames

Resurrection a sanctified state of body and mind
Death is not the end.

 

Charles Eric Cicirella

2/6/2013

DISOBEDIENCE

(For Jim Volk)

Listen to the silence between the notes, to the rapture throughout his transmigrations.
His playing is ageless and has always been beyond the scope.

He breaks through the sham of domesticity.

Refuses to beat a dead horse because he knows a dead horse will always come back to mock you.
Replenishes his guitar epiphanies with a self confidence that stays focused on a pursuit of true happiness and not of stilted happenstance.

Listen to the sound above the notes, to the train track reservoirs of falling waters.

He does not believe in obedience for obedience sake because he is an old dog always willing to learn new behaviors.

Charles Eric Cicirella

5/18/2013

HOW DOES IT FEEL?

BRICK MORTAR

(For Tom Jones)

Super heroes do indeed exist.
They don’t wear capes or tights.
Some actually wear glasses and eat lots of fast food.

Tom Jones is not a menace.
Tom Jones is your friendly neighbor who always waves and says hello.
Tom Jones plays the drums and guitar like he’s been doing it since before Rome burned.

As friends go you couldn’t ask for anyone nicer or more generous.
When you’re down and out he may invite you out to Harrisburg for a steak or maybe he’ll hand you a jelly doughnut because he knows how much they make you smile.
There are still a few genuine people left in this world and Tom Jones is definitely one of them.

I think the real rock stars have yet to really have their day in the sun.
I think the real rock stars are quite often working some non-descript job pushing papers and somehow making it work for them.
I think the real rock stars are focused primarily on honing their craft and don’t bother themselves with the trappings of fame or mediocrity.

Charles Cicirella 1/29/2013