Twinsburg, Ohio (For Julie)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-10-10T22_36_04-07_00

I want you in fits and starts.

Want you in pitters and pats.

This isn’t a confession or even a manifesto.

Just something I needed to get off my chest.

I want to speed up and slow down with you.

Want to go the distance and stop short on a long pier while we pretend we don’t recognize each others inner children.

There’s nothing I would prefer more than to have a play date with you and your wiener dog.

The poetry keeps us slim and ready to fight the noxious melancholia of another good morning.

                       

In a dream I am sopping up gravy with an invisible piece of Wonder Bread as I do my best to come to terms with what it means to get lost in the stacks with you.

The books like sentries guard us as we explore the outer reaches of a landscape drawn and quartered by one more miserable son of a bitch.

You whispered into my stir fried ears how very much you enjoyed my understated company as the Doors reminded us just how far we’d wandered off course.

Just received a text that felt like you were backing away which I can understand because the place where I live is not comprised of fairy tales or weasels that go pop in an undulating night of frozen pea promises and sticky marshmallow regrets.

I want you to break open my head like a passive aggressive piñata hell-bent on world domination.

Want you to push me over the White Cliffs of Dover with your champagne eyes and murder mystery mouth.  

This isn’t a story about the one that got away or even a nursery rhyme about the terminally cheerful who always fail before finally sinking one hole in one after another.

Just something I wanted to share with you before all the beer has been drunk and the bartender calls last call.

Charles Cicirella

10/10/2016

Meet Me Down By the Pylons (For Katie Boyd)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-09-30T05_47_02-07_00

Meet me underneath the sycamore trees, by the river at the side of the dusty road.

I knew you were a poem the first time I looked into your potbelly stove eyes.

It’s futile to resist because irascible poets like myself don’t understand the word no.

And Heaven for me would be going to the record shops with you on a Saturday afternoon.

There was a snake in the pantry and I was as scared as a kid at their first communion.

Katie showed that snake who was boss as I stood on a chair and covered my eyes like a Victorian lady.

And the music is in our heads as we hunker down and take cover from all the monsters under the bed and outside in the garden.

“Close your eyes in fields of wonder. Close your eyes and dream.”

There’s no stopping any one of us when we get a running start and believe we can fly.

And I was frozen from fear until I looked into your fluttering butterfly eyes and understood to heal we must first defrost and embrace the heat of a new morning.

Charles Cicirella

9/30/16

Monomaniacal

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2016-09-27T22_03_24-07_00

not pointing fingers

that’s not my intention

just from where I stand
being monomaniacal

is a losing game

especially when

the only subject you’re

well versed in

are pictures of yourself

what about a change of pace

a photo of some bushes

or a Wendy’s drive-thru

in the middle of nowhere

grab yourself a fifty cent

Frosty and a Baconator

and give the self serving

smirk and unlasting

impressions a break

for a change

you may ask why am I

obsessed with someone

else’s love affair with their own image

and trust me it has zero to do with

sour grapes because I don’t even drink

no it’s more because too many seem to be

caught up in this person’s self inflated

celebrity and it sickens me to see another

Guyana playing out before us like a

slick, indifferent butter knife to the gut

there has to be something more worthwhile

to waste our nights and days focusing and

unfocusing upon like maybe politics or

the state of virtue and where it’s gone off to

Charles Cicirella

8/28/16