I wrote this poem for Doug (AKA Bob Fosse)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-04-30T15_00_53-07_00

We gotta stick together

We’re both hard to handle,

Rescues and fear biters

Sometimes I feed you turkey

When your mommy isn’t looking

Because your default expression makes me so sad

Today I found you in the back of the closet

Guessing you’re dealing with some issues

And your skeletons are full of bullet holes

I am Jewish and Sicilian

You are Pug and Beagle

Both of us are torn between guilt and reciprocity for the common dog or man

Never fails to bring a smile to my Joker’s mouth when I say hello and you wag your question mark tail

I call you my brother because I’ve never felt close to my own brother

We’ve become family in quite a short time because there’s no time like the present in this tamped down world of skullduggery and silent alarms

Charles Cicirella

4/30/19

Taste You like an Ice-Cream Cone (For Kat)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-04-30T11_27_49-07_00

I’m not gonna lie

I like when it’s hot outside

And you drip all over my hands

Like a penguin’s shame

You are a time piece I keep close

To the gat in my underpants

Sometimes I take out your slugs

And count them feverishly

Slip, slide and away

I was nearly dreaming

When I woke up and remembered

The Beatles broke up long before you were conceived

It’s all in how you present yourself to the world

I imagine you carry yourself like an umbrella

In a black rainstorm, never missing a step

And always wishing you had fucked Michael Douglas

I picked up the bad habit of name dropping from my mom

It’s a horrible habit and one I wish to quit before it’s too late

Sometimes when I lay myself down to sleep I pretend the sky

Is a chalkboard and all my fears and anxieties are erased away

I’m not gonna lie

You’re oftentimes the only thing that gets me writing

I hunker down and think about your ink and it leaves me hot and bothered

You inspire me more than the subs I get from Ferrara's Imported Foods and that’s saying a lot

Charles Cicirella

4/30/19

G A P

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-04-27T01_21_46-07_00

Everyone’s striving to write the next great American poem

Me, I’m doing my best to unwrap a stick of chewing gum with a stream of consciousness mind

When they deride Steinbeck for Travels with Charley all I can think is that old dog deserves far better

Nearly 36 years ago I wrote a poem about the moon and it carried me back across the River Styx

I’m not tired and I’m not going to bed anytime soon and still I want to love you while you are as fresh as a day lily and I’m unscented like the humorless wind

She broke wind in Kohl’s and I found it adorable because that’s how I roll when the opposite sex makes me comfortable enough to let my guard down

Everyone’s striving to be the biggest troll online which is quite sad because it makes you wonder what happened to summers of love and spring times when chocolate Jesuses rose again?

I believe it was the gap in Letterman’s teeth that made him the stellar late night host that he was

Carson had nothing on him when David would have kids on to do their science experiments and you could see just how invested he was

Writing never feels old hat and if it ever does I’ll stick my head in the oven like Sylvia did because the bell jar is never half full or half empty, it just is

I nearly took a nap about thirty six minutes ago, but then the fruit punch gave me a rush of adrenaline which can only mean when I crash I’m gonna crash hard and leave no impressions in the porous sand

We took Aldi’s by storm because it’s not about what they can tolerate and until they learn to respect their customers, I’ll just keep on beeping and demanding they order tartar sauce all year round

Charles Cicirella

4/26/19

Dried Blood

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-04-27T01_08_45-07_00

Nose started to bleed tonight

Stress of the world affecting me

Atlas shrugged and chunks of blood reminded me I’m human

It was right before the bonus round on Wheel of Fortune

Started feeling more like Ratso than the Raging Bull

Midnight cowboys call out to me in a restless sleep and before I know it DoorDash is at the door and I’m unwilling to own up to my order history

The small stuff is bound to kill each and every one of us before the big stuff even makes a dent

We must withstand the grinding ineptitude of it all because there’s no God pulling our free will strings and justice for all is a flagrant lie

Leggings are okay, but I miss jeans and the kernel of truth in their tight exit strategy

Stand up tall, even and especially when you are a person of small stature like me

It’s not about over compensation, but instead about the strength of our music festival characters and how much of a shit we’re willing to give when we’re reduced to shitting in a bag

Hit the road hard, stick your thumb out on the side of the endless highway and never forget when Neal did this the counter culture was still in its infancy

I stared up at the ceiling and pinched my nose to stop the blood from flowing onto my Beatles tee-shirt

Everything is taking its toll and if I don’t get stoned soon my pathological complacency will replace whatever power I once possessed

Tell me a story, any story to keep me awake and from zoning out because the poetry is my DNR and these words are my funeral procession

Charles Cicirella

4/26/19

Standing In The Water

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-04-27T01_01_42-07_00

Caught up in porn to the point I cannot see straight

You’ll of course be able to relate, but never will admit it to yourself

Porn pushes all of our buttons until we’re wrung out and even confessing only stalls the inevitable

Smartphones have replaced intimacy as we’re numbed down from the outside in and the windows to our soul become vacant help wanted signs to nowhere

Was at the eye doctor when I pulled out my flip phone and this young woman, who had sparked up a conversation, stopped speaking to me because I guess my phone was beneath her station

The status quo uses no lube as it fucks us up our fundamentalist assholes with a no tolerance lack of ethics and the wherewithal to no longer be able to separate the white noise from a forest of whitewashed, spin doctor sycophants

The slaughter all around us tells us a bedtime story designed to put us to sleep like the Zyklon B used at the Auschwitz concentration camp

You shouldn’t be at all surprised by this final solution mentality because it’s what the bible teaches in bloody, begotten chapter and verse

You don’t like being a plebeian always having your neck stepped on by a brown shirt or whatever color is in style at the moment then rise up before it’s too late and the smokestacks start smoking 24/7

Porn teaches us to love our neighbor like the Ten Commandments commands us to forsake free will and fall in lockstep with a belief system having more in common with the Inquisition than anything having to do with love

I was all used up from my lack of trying so I froze myself like Walt Disney and resisted the notion that animation is as real as virtual reality gets

Yes, it’s true I am a water sign, but that doesn’t mean I like water or that I carry my house around with me like the crab I am

Cam sites and phone sex waste my time as I try and gather up the courage to just say no and instead watch reruns of The A-Team

I’ve never much believed in planning out anything which leaves me at almost fifty years old with a rolling stone mentality that gathers no moss, but also brings me no security

I’ll take to the open road because that’s what I’ve always believed I was meant to do, leaving no stone unturned and never meeting a windmill I didn’t wish to vanquish

Charles Cicirella

4/26/19