My Mind Map #4

I know I’m getting close to something, even though I don’t know what it is.
I refuse to even use the word truth because that’s a word used far too often and is losing whatever street cred it may have once possessed.

My poetry is like a Play-Doh factory and I’ll keep pushing it out in all the many colors of the rainbow because that’s what arrested adolescents do as they wait for the paramedics to arrive.
I remember being fifteen years old at Macs Backs Paperbacks on Coventry in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Suzanne welcomed me as I entered the bookstore, and I’ve never once looked back. Having the opportunity to finally get up and share whatever this is that was taking shape on the page is the best fix I have ever had, and no drug could have even come close to taking its place.

I like to think I am a romantic when nothing could be further from the truth.
I’m just a misshapen little man who does not shower enough and lets his beard grow because he is too lazy to fish out the electric razor from beneath the sink.
There is a slight possibility, though, that I have a great intellect, or at least that is what I was once told by some paranoid freak who believed the voices he was hearing might actually be divulging some Earth shattering information to his mind map.
To be perfectly honest I had never heard the word intellect before he had said it, and when I told him that, he thought I was fucking with him. I ended up playing him an advanced copy of Dylan’s record Down in the Groove, so everything sorta kinda worked itself out in its own way.

I know I’m close to striking oil or finding the next big thing. Then again, maybe I’m just another little boy whose eyes are bigger than his stomach.
I refuse to believe I’ve come this far only to have to now stop panning for gold.
My own street cred dried up eons ago, yet still I will never stop swinging for the fences, even though I absolutely hate sports and the metaphors that go along with them.

Charles Cicirella
10/3/14

Close My Eyes

I am going to close my eyes and go to bed.
Turn off the phone and forget I was ever here.
I am loving myself and wish you would join the festivities without any hard feelings or passive aggressive tendencies.

I am going to get on my knees and pray to God. Even if I have my doubts about this creator that so many people seem to hold in such high esteem.
I am going to close my eyes and when I open them either you’ll be in love with me or gone. You choose and please don’t clear your throat because you know how I hate spoiler alerts.
After just now taking a shower I forgot to clean my ears which means my hearing probably won’t be up to par. I am telling you this so you won’t think I am choosing to ignore you but instead will understand that hearing or not hearing you is out of my control.

They told me sleep would be like a temporary death and yet my dreams kept me awake and the little sleep I did get made me even more jealous of the ghosts inside the machine.
I will never forget sitting in that ice-cream parlor in Chicago eating a turtle sundae with my good friend as Bob told us something only dead men know.
Bring yourself back down to Earth and I promise I’ll be here when you get back. We can continue where we left off or even better we can start all over again just like the pioneers did before Silicon Valley took over our lives.

I am going to close my eyes and finally wake up.
Turn off the television and forgive myself for all the wrongs that I’ve done and that includes never cleaning my mother’s condo up to her rigorous and ransacked standards.
I am in the process of rediscovering myself and wish you would either join the party or leave the building because your silent treatment is worse than electroshock therapy to my Peter Cottontail soul.

Charles Cicirella
10/14/14

Poetry Endoskeleton

Add flesh to your poetry endoskeleton.
Accept the task handed to you, and stop pretending you cannot hear the voices in your head.
We are mere shadows of our former selves when we allow the bullies to get the upper hand.

I’m going to eat a roasted turkey and provolone sandwich on Tuscany bread, hoping that it will help beat back this depression.
Don’t forget you are one of the good ones, even though all the signs point to the opposite being true.
Our society loves to celebrate the art while shunning the artist. It’s just the way things seem to work in our overexposed and undervalued society of haves and have nevers.

I’m going to jump in the deep end and pray my endoskeleton survives. I’ve been afraid of deep water since before my bones fused together. At some point I must face my fears and stop haunting myself.
This writing is getting me nowhere fast, but it’s the only thing that feels right. I refuse to go against my gut instincts, no matter if I end up on the street with nothing but a cardboard box to call my home.

The good news is I haven’t pulled out my hair in quite some time. The bad news is I haven’t been in anything even close to a relationship in over ten years.
This poetry skeleton is the scaffolding that supports my humanness.
I’m just a shell of my former self, but I am not complaining because there are still many poems to write before the darkness comes a-calling and leads me into the light.

Charles Cicirella
10/10/14