Beth 2.0

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-02-19T14_43_02-08_00

Her words throw me down hard onto the wrestling mat.

I am mean to her because I know she can take it and also because it’s easier to show her I care by expressing disdain instead of affection.

Beth’s poetry catches me off guard with the Miranda rights way it gets to the truth by withholding nothing, so help me God.

Neither one of us is interested in physical contact because we learned a long time ago those who really love you will leave and those you cannot stand oftentimes will stand the test of time and then some.

I wish I could have eaten a western omelet with Einstein and discussed just about anything with Stephen Hawking.

Knighthoods are a dime a dozen in these days of plant based chicken in a bucket and vegetables that don’t believe in the letter of the law.

Watching a friend’s poetry blossom does my heart good as Wilford Brimley starts to again pop up in movies even though he hasn’t made a film since Timber the Treasure Dog. Honestly, I thought he was dead.

Let’s get something straight your itching reminds me just fallible we are as we breathe in carbon dioxide while trying to distance ourselves from our convoy-carbon-footprints.

Her words no longer kept hidden under a bushel as her Lite-Brite consciousness shows us whose boss in these glass-shattered-ceiling nights and days.

Eating Chinese food with her and Evie is a great excavation into everything that’s possible once you stop punishing yourself for someone else’s sins.

Beth’s poetry is the green light that’s necessary to start us all moving.

Charles Cicirella

2/19/20

Charlie

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-02-13T22_20_33-08_00

Reexamine everything

It’s your last chance at happiness

Don’t dawdle or else you’ll pop like a weasel

Red haired, freckled troll

I was as timeworn as Benjamin Button

As young as a pickled herring, thirty seven years after his Bar mitzvah

Let’s not stutter, stammer or procrastinate

Pull out into the intersection when it’s your turn to enter the fray

I know you’re often at a loss for words, now let go of the undeserved pressure weighing on your clipped wings and fly out of the open window like a yellow or blue parakeet

Reevaluate everything

It’s your last opportunity to avoid permanent sadness

Don’t put off tomorrow what you can put off today

Angry, ill-begotten son

Hanging out in his room, playing with his Fisher Price Adventure People

He made up stories and invested time in these imaginary people’s lives

Let’s stop acting out the same tragic comedy

It’s time we look our makers in the eye and claim victory before we’re pummeled again into the unforgiving ground with our own hungry fists

L'Chaim

Charles Cicirella

2/13/20

Daddy

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-02-13T15_06_26-08_00

We’re not close

I wish that wasn’t the case

He can only be close to one person at a time

My mother warned me

I still had to find out for myself

No big surprise she was right and I let her down big time

Never forget the night I caught him watching Apocalypse Now and him admitting it was his favorite movie

After my parent’s divorce I was his best friend until he started meeting women and he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough

To this day he won’t speak to me about the past; every time I try he says I need to accept responsibility like he played no part in fucking me up

We need to be able to express our feelings without being shut down because safe space or no safe space, keeping everything pent up is death

Nay-sayers can go to hell because look at the spot we’re now in after political correctness repeatedly screwed us and party unity drives us farther and farther apart

My mother always said my father needed a drill sergeant and that she was tired of being that person

I wish my father and me were closer

The last time he came up from Florida he couldn’t even be bothered to take me to the emergency room

I shouldn’t be surprised though because just getting him to take me on a bike ride through the park when I was a kid was like pulling teeth

Charles Cicirella

2/13/20

Mommy

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-02-12T14_40_33-08_00

Thinking about my mother a lot lately.

Maybe I’m finally grieving.

I honestly don’t know.

She was as tough as they come.

The only person I’ve ever feared.

Her love something her children still seek.

She didn’t like for me to go to her doctor appointments, but on that particular day she needed help getting into Marcia Green’s car so we decided it was best I come along.

In one split second everything changed and I’m still picking myself up from off of the floor.

My mommy is dead and it’s a score I must settle with myself before I can ask my creator why he killed the person who created me.

Thinking about my mother a lot lately.

Her ashes are still here with me because I cannot think of anywhere she’d be completely at peace.

My siblings were jealous of me from the day I was born because my mother and I always shared a special bond that no one outside of our bubble could possibly comprehend.

My sister only visited my mother once when she was sick and my brother never spoke to her because holding onto his anger must have been more important than blood and atonement.

I was named the executor of her estate because she must have known that I was her only child who wouldn’t sell her out and understood that her wishes were sacrosanct.

She’d stay in the bathroom for hours on end when we were kids reading, doing the crossword and talking on the phone because I believe that was the only place she felt safe and could dictate things on her own terms with absolutely no blowback from anyone.

Charles Cicirella

2/12/20