empty ghosts

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-03-28T15_12_40-07_00

no such thing

as empty ghosts

they’re all packing

something

when’s the last time

you revealed

your true self

and is your birthday suit

back from the cleaners

i feel drained

from all these forewarnings

of self doubt

but i will fight

until the cows

come home

and I remember you

like it was yesterday

in fact it was yesterday

and you never looked more

fit

no such thing

as empty threats

all threats pack a punch

all pressures leave a mark

when’s the last time

you went against

your better judgement

and regretted nothing

i am worn out

from all these

chunky peanut butter

days and nights

and you’re not even

the last thing

on my mind

any longer

charles cicirella 3/28/16

There is a Cost (For Ted Kane & Russ Van Rooy)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-03-27T21_26_53-07_00

There is a cost for everything won and everything lost.

There is a cost for those we have forsaken and those who have forsaken us.

There is a debt paid and a price waged on not owning up to the blood on our hands.

There’s a cost for patent disregard and for counting our chickens before they hatch.

There’s a cost for taking everything and everyone for granted.

And when we least expect it there will be a burying and a raising of the dead.

I was astonished at how you improve my words with the flick of a guitar string.

I was transfixed with how you lend my writing a newfound sense of determination.

And there will be a reward for everything you have done for me in this life.

There’s a rigmarole.

There’s an easing into the chaos.

And there are wars that will be battled and battles that must be endured.

There is a cost for directions misdirected and a reward when we pay it forward.

There is a cost for all this cadaverous theology laid out before us like the body electric.

There’s a moral imperative pushing us ever onward to the outer reaches of interspace.

Charles Cicirella

3/17/16

I'm Losing It

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-03-27T20_04_37-07_00

Title keeps going through my head

Which can mean only one thing

A poem is coming and I best get out of the way

Resistance is futile when the muses decide it’s your turn to take out the trash

And the last time I was raked over the coals I rather enjoyed the humiliation

This is not the end, no it’s just the beginning and don’t worry we’ll make more once we run out of bullets and those little finger sandwiches

I’m losing it

Losing it over the big things that really aren’t all that important like not getting to go to a bunch of Bob Dylan shows this summer or going and not being front row

I keep trying to keep myself in check, but that’s mighty difficult when quicksand is the only place left to stand tall

I’ll write this poem and then I’ll send it to a friend who will record some music for it and make it even better than it originally was when I nearly died of exposure and the alphabet stopped making sense

I keep worrying what if my poetry is not up there on a whole other level than I remind myself it’s about actually doing the work and not about the celebrity that may someday arrive in a puff of secondhand smoke

We all daydream of better days to come; the secret is to not become a slave to those daydreams or allow the silver linings to get you in a chokehold and break more than just your spirit.

Charles Cicirella

3/13/16