Take Off The Noose

Take off the noose, and get comfortable. We may be here a while.

I wish I understood why this poem is taking such a long time to write.

First there was a title, then a couple of days later, the first line spilled out, and now two more lines are making an appearance.

I have learned you take what you can get. Sometimes all there is to eat is ramen noodles, then maybe if you’re lucky a nice roasted chicken, and, if you’re really blessed, some chocolate cake with a glass of Vitamin D milk to wash it all down with.

Inspiration comes, and then is gone just as quick.

Go to the hardware store, and buy some nice new rope so when you hang yourself, everything will go off without a hitch.

I refuse to ignore whatever gifts I may have been imbued with. The other day I thought about jumping in front of a train but decided to put those plans on hold and to instead enter The Magic Theatre ready to experience the fantasies that exist in my mind.

I believe I may be both one of the “suicides” and one of the “immortals” and that is why I am having such a difficult time deciding what to do next.

Charles Cicirella

10/13/14

Bell's Palsy

I’m finding spitting to be one of the hardest parts. That and only seeing out of my right eye. I have my left eye taped shut because it will not close on its own.
I’m a constant namedropper. It’s not something I am proud of. As a matter of fact, there is very little that I am proud of in these days of hacking coughs and hacked emails.
I’m thinking about having fried eggs for dinner. I like dipping the bread in the orange-yellow yolk and how it soaks in for the long haul.

I’m tapering off the steroids from the Bell’s palsy. Time to take two tablets and eat a tuna fish sandwich. I am going through some mild withdrawal, which I don’t mind too terribly much.
Let’s stop all this hemming and hawing and get down to what is really going on. I don’t have a clue where this poem is heading and I prefer it that way when it is you I’m lying next to in the brittle darkness.
Oftentimes when I wake up in the hand-me-down morning, it is really the late afternoon. My routine begins again checking emails, taking allergy medicine, and drinking Coca-Cola. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. This poem may morph into something or it may just sputter out like some empty and tired old lawnmower.

Today for the first time in a week, my left eye is not taped shut, and I do not feel like a Cyclops.
We take our health for granted until we feel it slipping out of our grasp. I need to learn to be more grateful for all the good things that I have.
I spend too much time waiting for the other shoe to drop instead of simply enjoying the blessings of everyday breath and everyday beauty.
 
Charles Cicirella
12/21/14

My Stream Has Greatly Improved Since Drinking More Water

(For Nichole)

She had to remind me to drink more water when I mentioned that my stream was intermittent. I am funny that way. All the truths that should be self-evident either are just out of reach or lost in a parallel universe.
Sometimes when I stand in front of the toilet getting ready to take a pee, I like to imagine myself as John Hancock signing The Declaration of Independence. Most of the time, though, I know that I am just another graffiti artist spraying the side of a boxcar door.

Usually I pee sitting down because it’s easier than having to constantly be wiping off the seat. I know I could just lift it up, but my aim has never been very good especially when my stream sometimes shoots in multiple directions.
Someway, somehow I’m trying to make things right in my own head. It is a difficult proposition, though, when everything is on fire and there is no fire extinguisher on hand. Lend me your ears, and I promise the lies I lay down will be fully pressed and wrinkle resistant.

She had to remind me to drink more water when I mentioned that my stream was suffering from stage fright. Not every performer works better under pressure, and that became painstakingly clear when only drips and drops of tinkle came out of my waterspout.
Sometimes when I stand in front of the toilet getting ready to take a pee, I like to imagine myself as an honest to God man and not just some arrested adolescent who is finding it hard to stand on his own two feet and take a proper piss.

Charles Cicirella
12/16/14

Let’s Eat Some Chocolate and Forget that Nobody Loves Us

I am not feeling sorry for myself.
I am just facing the truth.
I did not feel like watching WKRP in Cincinnati so I put on the record Highway 61 Revisited and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel so fucking alone.

We begin in a pool of muck and end up, if we are lucky, in that same muck. Holding someone's hand as the seizures pass through our brains like more breaking news white noise.
My body is falling apart, but I guess that is what happens even if you love Jesus and have renounced all false deities as petulant cocksuckers.
This poetry like a sticky candy cane noose around my neck reminds me just how little time any of us really have left. So Merry Fucking Christmas if you are a good consumer I mean Christian.

No one seems to get me or is willing to accept me for who I am.
Even those out on the fringes conspire to keep me out of the Nativity scene.
It's all right though because I have learned when life stops taking your calls perhaps it’s best you just call it a day, turn the record over and take another bite of the chocolate bar.

Charles Cicirella
12/25/14

"True Love Tends To Forget"

(For Bob Dylan’s invisible self)
 
It’s 2 AM, and I’m listening with headphones to Street Legal.
Ripped from the original vinyl, and yes that makes all of the difference.
I have never understood those who criticize this record.

It’s his voice that catches me off guard every time.
He sounds like he’s in the darkness with no rehabilitation or recovery in sight.
Maybe that’s the trouble. This record is too full of unvarnished truth and dire consequences with no smoke or mirrors to tamp down the flames as this man burns alive right before our unsympathetic ears.

What if Bob Dylan’s just a man and feels things just like any human being does?
What if Bob Dylan’s one of those truly rare artists who can take everything brewing inside of him and pour it onto the page with no self-restraint or self-censorship?
What if what Bob Dylan hears in his head is exactly what we are experiencing on this record?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the original mix.
In fact I think the so called muddy sound just brings us closer to the alienated state of affairs this record slices through like a Jewish ninja hell-bent on self-reconstruction as they look for the cure or catchall to bring everything back into focus.
“If I’m there in the morning, baby, you’ll know I’ve survived.”

Charles Cicirella
9/23/14

"The Forest Is Mankind’s Nightmare"

This is your show. I am just the white elephant in the room.
I’m the red dragon on the merry-go-round everyone resists sitting upon but secretly wishes to shoot into their jelly baby veins.
This is your show, and I am just more collateral damage that refuses to accept that it’s dead.

Believe what you want. It won’t make a damn bit of difference when your stools are bloody and your doctor no longer returns your phone calls.
I elected for the surgery even though it was not elective surgery, and look at me now - just another bitter, dead atheist wishing they were a bland, alive Christian.
When your chosen status becomes a monkey on your back, that’s a good time to sell the farm and move to a city where no one knows your name or believes in your holier-than-thou status.

This is your show. I am just the rude house guest who refuses to vacuum and has eaten all of your Hot Pockets.
I’m the dragon you’ve been chasing long before Vietnam became a black eye the United States of Amnesia repeats every few years because occupation is the only language our government seems to understand.
This is your show, and I am just another Paddington orphan wishing someone would take me in from the cold and treat me like I was actually worth something.

Charles Cicirella
11/25/14

Witness

I must get back to work.
I must get back to doing the work that everyone sees as nothing but I know is everything.
Depression crashes right through the front door, and before you know it, you’re pushing up daisies or, worse yet, sleeping your life away.

We are the dreamers, and though we may appear stagnant, nothing could be further from the truth.
We are the provocateurs causing trouble the live long day, knowing that whistling while you work will only bring you that much closer to the graveyard.
We are the fast food slaves who refuse to serve you any longer because you’re obese and that zero trans-fat doesn’t seem to be doing you much good.

I’m sleeping on my mother’s floor at forty-five years old with no clue what to do next, but I swear I do have an end game. It’s just one I choose to keep even from myself.
I want to tell you how I feel, but being ignored on Facebook is somehow worse than being ignored in person.
I need something I can believe in. Someone I can sink my teeth into who will return the favor and make me feel alive again. I have all the belief in myself that one person can possibly muster, but still that is not nearly enough to carry me over the threshold and deliver me to the Promised Land. I am a witness though I swear to Christ what I’ve witnessed so far does not impress me, nor does it give me much faith in the living dead.

I must return to some semblance of normal.
I must stop feeling guilty for anything and everything I’ve ever done wrong. It’s not about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps but instead about keeping it together when the shit is constantly hitting the fan and even the shit has had enough.
This paralysis I have been wrestling with has begun to not feel so awful, and that is neither acceptable nor something I would wish on my worst enemy.

Charles Cicirella
12/1/14

Yummy

I’m just about ready to eat a bowl of ice-cream.
I have been preparing all week and, I am nearly ready to jump in and drop out.
It most definitely should be about the small things, especially when you cannot afford any of the larger things that you want.

I would like to go see more than one Bob Dylan concert this time around, but I cannot afford to, so I must accept this irritating fact like I must accept autumn is almost here and Christ was more than just a martyr or teacher trying to get tenure.
I would like to see genocide eradicated and for everyone to learn to get along or to at least ignore each other. There’s too much violence and too much dying and too many zealots preying upon the people with their dogmatic ignorance and dictatorial intolerance.
I would like to have bought a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice-cream, but instead had to settle for a half gallon of Friendly’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup because it was on sale and boutique ice-cream does not fit the bill when all of your bills are long past due.

I’m just about ready to tell her that I miss seeing her naked, but I know she won’t care.
I have been preparing all my life and am almost ready for the humiliation of once again coming up short when attempting to dunk my ball into her basket.
It shouldn’t be about size, but we all know that it is because size matters like money matters, and if you don’t have either one, you’ll be sitting on the bench waiting in vain for the coach to put you in.

Charles Cicirella
8/28/14

In My Tummy

I ate a bowl of ice-cream and was happy for about fifteen minutes.
I watched a porno and was happy for about fifteen minutes.
I sat down in front of the laptop to write this poem and was lost in thought for about fifteen minutes.

I’m going out of my head and wish there was someone I could talk to.
I’m not really thinking about a therapist because I’d just end up arguing with them and would never take the prescribed medication for whatever is supposedly wrong with my head.
I’m pretty sure I have driven away most of the people who were once close friends because I have a tendency to talk at people instead of holding an actual conversation where two parties play equal parts.

I’m so fucking isolated, and it’s not doing me any good.
I’m so fucking inside my own head, and it’s bound to kill me dead.
I’m so fucking tired of being sick and tired and keep thinking about what my final act will be like.

I ate an Alka-Seltzer Fruit Chews, and my acid indigestion subsided for about fifteen minutes.
I thought about calling you, and that occupied my thought process for about fifteen minutes.
I sat down in front of the laptop to revise this poem, and was lost in the profundity of the moment for about a minute and a half.

Charles Cicirella
8/29/14

Chicken Wings

My lips are burning from the Buffalo wing sauce.
I still want to try the spicy chicken wings at this Chinese restaurant in Chicago.
The first time I ever ate chicken wings was when I was working at JR Miggs in Columbus, Ohio.

We bask in the complex simplicity of our lives when what we need to be doing is asking the hard questions like why is everything so messed up.
We need to wake up and smell the coffee and begin wrapping our heads around the fact that capitalism is failing us and democracy is a big fat lie.
What happened to the division of church and state? And why are we allowing any religious group the right to decide our rights for us? Jesus Christ was a teacher and a Jew. Not a politician or a Christian.

I don’t have a clue what this poem is about or why I started talking about chicken wings and then morphed into how fucked up things are.
Perhaps the state of the world and the state of my chicken wings has something in common, or maybe I am just losing my mind one tasty chicken wing at a time.
I got extra bleu cheese dressing to bath the Buffalo wings in. I must admit that biting into a chunk of bleu cheese and then tasting that flaming hot Buffalo wing sauce is quite a diabolical and richly rewarding combination.
Soon I’ll be returning to Chicago, and I really do hope I can talk my friend into returning to that Chinese restaurant in Albany Park because their spicy pork is damn near as good as it gets.

Charles Cicirella
10/5/14

Breaking Bread

Breaking bread with our eyes wide open.
Miracles happen every day to everyone.
It doesn’t matter which wave you choose to ride because they’ll all bring you to the shore eventually.

There is a family dynamic about you that I picked up on from the first moment that we met.
I could tell that you like to take care of people, and I really hope you also allow people to take care of you.
When we were led out of Egypt, it’s you I would have wanted by my side because I know you wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to me. Plus you would have laughed at all of my inappropriate jokes.
I’ve never been a very strong swimmer so even when the Red Sea parted, I would have still wanted to hold the hand of someone who would have talked me through our crossing.

The desert is a deprived place that is not recommended to get lost in. The bootlegged sun will have you hallucinating before you know it.
I believe even Moses must have had some serious second thoughts as he brought his people forth into a land where nothing was what it appeared to be.
It goes without saying that listening to a strange burning bush will oftentimes get you into trouble, regardless if your intentions are good and you believe in this vision quest.

Breaking down because everything seems hopeless and without a solution in sight.
“Trust yourself to find the path where there is no if and when.”
You are the miracle breaking through a new level of consciousness with every step that you take. There is strength, there is love, and there is so much healing beauty in your readiness to evolve.

Charles Cicirella
10/5/14