“POWER TO THE HAW” (For Julia)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-02-20T11_57_25-08_00

Soaking up your moisture

I know you are wet

By the Titanic look in your kosher ham and cage-free eyes

There’s no desperation in your DNA and why would there be

When you’ve always tested drug free and still believe in magic

I swear I once witnessed unicorns gallop out of your perfect tuchus

The portrait of you is American Gothic after a walk on the wild side of self -determination and self-empowerment

It’s raw like an unlicked postage stamp and the power of the purse is everything it’s cracked up to be with a slice of pie thrown in for good measure

I’m always torn between the banana cream and coconut cream and I wish someone would join the two together so my divided loyalties could finally be reunited

Steering into the flesh strokes of your portrait extraordinaire I admire the painter for their rude genius and how it interrupts your self-loathing in volcanic cracks of rod and switch

It’s a dreamscape of fever and slave driver faded out as political correctness attempts to erase our tortured oxymoron selves

I refuse to hang out with anyone, these days, unless they’ve seen both Annie Hall and Rosemary’s Baby

Charles Cicirella

2/20/19

There’s no pretending in a world of Monday’s. (For Kat)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-02-18T22_31_17-08_00

We’re all slaves to time even though time doesn’t know we exist.

She made friends with Sisyphus and then the boulder was her only concern.

Feeling zeal over the big ticket items while the smallest of the small slips between the cracks and is reflected by a roomful of mirrors.

Plodding through the mystery of why we exist is such a heavy slog especially when philosophy has never interested us in the least little bit and our crisis body shames us before we’re even hallway through our victim statement.

The police told me there’s no use pretending the culprit would be caught because criminals will be criminals and life intentionally cracks us up.

My glass has always been shattered like at some Jewish wedding or bank robbery where the takeaway isn’t ass or grass, but instead our own unremarkable lives.

I so badly wanted to trade punches with the champ, but he was out for repairs so I settled for the next best thing and shot Groucho Marx in my chicken pajamas.

Poetry doesn’t leave you in the lurch neither does suicide if you do it right the first time.

I was so hopped up on the next big thing I forgot about all the shit that I was once so over the moon about and nothing stays charged forever and everything remains in lockstep and locked down in a perpetual downward spiral of flop sweat.

My father once informed me, I was a survivor and that kept me going for about a decade until I ran out of gas and a sense of humor in San Francisco on Cleveland Avenue.

The band I was traveling with had had enough of me and my obtuse strangulations and before you know it they rubbed me out like a tombstone that just wanted to disappear into the Birds Eye frozen ground.

The peek-show dancer wasn’t interested in my excuses for not having correct change as she closed her window and left me holding my blue balls and Sharpie Fine Permanent Marker.

We’re all slaves to Father Time and his family of vulture capitalists.

She made friends with the music in her head because she was convinced it was the only way to stay in touch with the fire in her belly.

The status quo just another last ditch reminder that being human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when even Mother Nature has turned her benevolent back on us.

Charles Cicirella

2/18/19

Experience Ecstasy (For Kat)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-02-16T00_34_23-08_00

I follow the fire as it lights the herb

Carries me away to a la carte skies

Words like silent Harold Lloyds thrill with their sequenced autonomy

This valentine chose you, not the other way around, so you needn’t worry about the backlash

Ordered a brownie earlier and I’m still anticipating the perfect moment to visit it with my mouth, teeth and tongue

You’re the only acrobat I’ve ever witnessed fly through the air who I believed would land safe and sound in their own bed

Going to the circus isn’t what it was once cracked up to be

Even when I was a child all I can remember is the fear a clown would break loose and force me to have a good time

I wasn’t at Woodstock, but if I had been I would have told that young girl to put her top back on

Experiencing ecstasy keeps you on your toes as the music drowns out the meaning and hidden agendas go the way of metered immigrants

I’ve had enough of America the beautiful becoming America the malignant

The very second he became President standards were eradicated and rage became an acceptable tool in our toolbox to wipeout communication and build unnecessary walls

I followed her fire as she got in bed and we snuggled together like two mad scientists in search of their next major discovery

She always graded me on a curve which kept me looking swell in both of our brownie batter eyes

Standing over the kitchen sick, choking on smoke and dreams never quite reconciled

Charles Cicirella

2/15/19

Carving Station

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-02-10T19_41_12-08_00

I carved the steak effortlessly

blood pooling, essence pooling

grease junkie, frothing at mouth

burning in an overdose seizure

Jason Baldinger / Charles Cicirella

2/5/2019

living in the ache of the morning

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-02-10T18_09_31-08_00

living in the ache of the morning

I think that is the title as I wake up and breakfast sizes me up

an abattoir on plate or is it my mind?

I wish to steal you away before the clock strikes twelve and america becomes the next concentration camp. my anxiety will always keep me from these feats

of daring do, maybe you already know that from the voicemails

you wore your famous blue raincoat like the most miserable weather in the whole wide world was upon you

the sky was the same grey as yr face, this city has a light problem

your chi always gave you away, you had no life to give and your corpse knew it

this of course says nothing of my corpse, or the roses I spit when I speak

thorns catch in my throat as Simon says and the walk down the green mile commences

in a bullfight, ah that’s bullshit… I ain’t papa hemingway

red splotches of blood run with the bulls in my rose tinted hangover visions

blood visions, prosecco visions, there are ghosts in the ache of the morning

rattle and hum in the pit’s throat kept intruders at bay and the natives restless

in the tantrum of late stage capitalism, we’re broke, we’re broken, we bay at endless moons

late stage elton john queen of england shock and awe mistress of mayhem a throaty bitch lays

a twenty on the bar for the biggest glass of gin you ever saw, she drinks it one gulp, beautiful

I ain’t papa hemingway, I ain’t even moms mabley, put that in your ripped stocking and smoke it motherfucker, cause I ain’t going anywhere unless you smoke me out with sage or feed me honeydew

was in Chicago the first time I had a fried egg on my cheeseburger, it was lip smacking good

as that night, as corpses, I knew it was ending, the rain and us, we were only seconds out

swore on a pack of bibles I had in the trunk for target practice and got down on my hands and knees and prayed for a reality I no longer believed in, the product of hanging by a thumbscrew

last rites are something I’ve always intended to hand back like a bad piece of fish or an explosive device with no sense of humor, same with the quarter that may get me across styx. Silent boatman or vulgar boatman, you be the judge

pulled down her brown corduroys and at her behest fucked her in the ass. Still wondering if my best friend Tony fucked her in the ass the next night while I ate egg sandwiches and farted in front of the television

lite beer means nothing when there’s a gun to your head and your doppelganger is a member of the NRA

poutine with extra gravy and suicide squads, this is life lived in fear of a moment

my routine is a suicide squad, but I hardly take myself seriously enough to pick up the phone and dial  911. If you need help, if you need help, if you need help. What if I just need cocaine?

just finished a poem called Preemie Blue and thinking J.B. is the only one who will get it

just finished a bag of gummy worms that were medicated, now I am the hot worm

the other side of the rainbow bites you every time, especially when the golden rule is up for grabs, so honor the blood feast boys and girls cause we are certainly doomed

doomed to relive all the bad bits while a new normal sits on our psyches like a half-eaten corned beef sandwich on Jewish rye , hold the pickle or a memory, I got no arms left

to wrap around anything – the last time I encircled your sun I believed I was on the cusp of greatness, since then I’ve come to tolerate my yellow bellied mediocrity that reeks of a wet mattress

I keep at it all the same, fuck if I know why or fuck if I know why not

last time I gave a fuck there was a red roof inn and a middle aged woman who really enjoyed sucking my dick or at least that’s what she said and I believed her

the last time I committed suicide I became mary prevost’s dinner

I had to look up who mary prevost is and I’m still not sure who she is or was

warm oatmeal skin with no voice and hungry dachshund

lost wiener dog amidst the sheets, your disadvantage savage, canine teeth

human teeth, I got them all in a small bag round my neck, mementos

outback alien dog chained up, it’s all in the game when you’re a croupier

alain delon’s fedora blowing in the wind, I think it’s Tuesday

the last time I copped a feel it was as much for kicks as for revenge

this bar smells like onions fried in the end of time, wish the jukebox wasn’t dead

Jason Baldinger / Charles Cicirella

1/31/19