Superimposed-Glitter-Reality (For Juliet)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-31T22_16_01-07_00

Snake venom

Feather boa

Landlocked misprint

Femme fatale

Blow Up

Fever pitched

Stand your ground

Sockeye requiem

"Four Dead in Ohio"

Foregone concluded

Dinosaur dystopia

Shaved avocado

Spine curvature

Vomit reflex

Lawn darts

Chain smoker

Nicotine fits

Sleight of hand

Come what may

Come what goes

Poisoned pen letter

Charles Cicirella

7/31/17

Joni Soule Reading #2

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-27T12_22_39-07_00

Dueling Banjos (For Kenny Mullins)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-23T14_13_56-07_00

Stand up and be counted

Or sit down and shut the fuck up

“He got a real pretty mouth, ain't he?”

We’re being led astray by a dog that cannot wag its tail and chew gum at the same time

Follow the white haired Jew screaming about a revolution because that’s the only way out from all this austere gluttony and neo liberal syphoning off of the working poor

Not only are there no free lunches, free range chickens in every pot is just another old wives tale and organic is no healthier than if you cannibalized your next door neighbor

Stand down and resist the temptation to overthrow the government because absolute power corrupts absolutely and next time you ask about pardons take a good long look in the mirror and try to come to terms with how much of a loser you are

Falling in love with your image or falling in love with money are the same thing and neither one will make a lick of difference when you’re shitting in a diaper and cannot even remember the sound of your own name

I get that you suffer from terminal low self-esteem, but that’s still no excuse for putting a gun to the head of America and making us suck your flea dick

Charles Cicirella

7/22/17

Everything's Dead

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-22T13_01_51-07_00

This lump in my stomach isn’t going away

The onion I’m peeling is my own existence and I’m tired of coming up short with tears in my indispensable eyes

The narrative got changed while bullets were flying over our heads and you washed your panda slippers for the millionth time

I know we can’t go back to the beginning and what would even be the point?

Before I came out to Middleburg Heights and we ate turkey and corned beef sandwiches

The library was a bust and so was the poor bird that got squished, but putting my hand on your thigh and you later telling me how it made your pussy throb will continue to replay in my Sodom and Gomorrah mind until the end of time

Everything’s dead or at least on life support and maybe that’s for the best, at least until she figures out what she wants and what she wants to do with my cadaver

We were in a corn field. Just me, you and the car that drove us into this mess because I fell asleep at the wheel and thankfully woke up before we hit the culvert

I’ve never been all that great at following through, but I swear someday I’ll put away childish things and accept the death sentence of being a grown up

I hear trucks pass by as you sleep and I imagine them bringing you samples because you deserve only the best as all of this uncertainty goes by the wayside like roadkill or organic vegetables

Seeing how we’re putting all of our cards on the table I told her I was falling in love and thankfully she didn’t hang up the phone or run from the room with her hair on fire

Everything’s dead and that’s okay because I believe in the Lazarus effect, meaning that the raising of the dead is more than possible in these days of box wine and roses disguised as Hershey’s Kisses

Charles Cicirella

7/19/17

Juicy

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-20T10_11_51-07_00

I want a Baconator.

I want it now.

Want it in my mouth and all over my Jewish-Sicilian lips.

Your ass came out of virtually nowhere.

Like a ballistic missile shot from an underground bunker straight to my unexpecting heart.

I love how you play it off like it’s no big deal when actually nothing could be further from the truth.

We resist temptation or we don’t.

It’s just that simple and the older I get the more I realize temptation may be the very last virtue we have left.

Never much cared for owls. It’s difficult caring about an animal who has eyes in the back of its head and is wiser than King Solomon on a tear.

Your ass calls out to me like a collect call from a prison of the universal mind.

I desire to break on through and cleanse The Doors of Perception by telling you everything that’s weighing me down and letting the chips fall where they may.

Of course it’s a dangerous proposition letting one’s guard down, but it also gets mighty boring always staying above the fray and never getting one’s hands and heart dirty.

I want a Baconator.

Want it like I want you on all fours, barking at the moon as I take you from the back like a miner mining for the bloodiest and most striking of diamonds.

You told me a secret with your eyes that I kept to myself for as long as I possibly could before spilling it upon this killing floor like music that must be shared with the world.

Charles Cicirella

6/21/17

Beautiful Resistance (For Lambryah)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-18T11_14_56-07_00

These words will not save me

They’re not intended for such paltry tasks

In the middle of the night I called out to her and she arrived in a honey pot

Somethings make sense, while others do not

The way you opened up and are now shutting down tears at my chalky bones like an illiterate adult trying to read the Jewish News

I always jump to conclusions and someday I’ll probably jump in front of a train. That’s just what poets do when poets run out of Wheel of Fortune consonants and vowels

I know you don’t understand when I say I believe you’re the last person I’ll ever make love to and perhaps that statement is both over the top and pathetic in its statuesque randomness

It’s just I’ve known since the first time you tried to hide your smile from me while on video chat that we were more than meant to be and that a late checkout would not be a problem

Every time I experience you in your birthday suit it’s like the very first time because your beauty both bewitches and bewilders me like the best graphic novels always have a tendency doing

You play inside of me like the most haunted and ridiculously redundant of refrains and that’s a very good thing because I’ve never been able to memorize the words so humming will most definitely come in handy in a pinch

I left the station at half past nine while in my mind it was our Brief Encounter that was of the utmost importance and left me whittled down like a sharp stick or canoe

In the middle of the afternoon I drank some much needed coffee and waited for you to respond. Thing is you’re most definitely losing interest and that is killing me like a thousand origami swan paper cuts to my already low self-esteem.

Charles Cicirella

7/18/17

A Reading of Joni Soule's Poetry

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-16T09_31_05-07_00

I Love Looking At You (For L.A.T)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-04T12_46_57-07_00

Beauty is skin deep

Actually it’s way deeper than that

Truth be told never knew I was a poet until you checked me out

Starts slow

Everything worth savoring takes its time heating up

You taught me that as you came from my words and images slathered in duck grease and my Jewish-Sicilian saliva

Another poem to add to the ever growing stack

It’s four hundred and fifty one degrees and we’ve not even set any books on fire yet

I want to drink Dandelion Wine from your button as you answer my questions with “maybe” and that soft smile you always have on the tip of your acrobatic tongue

Beauty is skin deep

That’s what they say when they want you to buy one of their overpriced skin products

Your beauty is so deep I’m afraid to wade in until I check that my passport is valid and I have some form of identification on me

Happy Birthday America!

Charles Cicirella

7/4/17

Teacher (For Abiah)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-07-03T14_28_13-07_00

Everything laid out before you like a catalog

That’s what he said, then he was dead

Just like that

The electric bulb was extinguished

Like death and taxes

There was no chorus

He was funny like that

And dreams will dismantle you

When least expected

Everything went to shit

From out of the blue

Something hit me

In the side of the head

Like a bolt of lightning

Or fan mail from a stalker

Like a teacher

She brought the class to

Some kind of order

I learned stuff

I never dreamt possible

My intensity, her kryptonite

Superman and Lois Lane

Absolute beginners

More pizazz,

Less theatrics

I read too much

Into every stroke of the pen

My feelings a torrent

Of water parks and deserts

There’s something for everyone

Until there isn’t

Charles Cicirella

7/3/17

TRUMP YOU

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-30T11_25_47-07_00

Jesus is good.

It’s not all you need to believe,

But it’s a damn good start.

Trump is no good.

It’s not all you need to hold onto,

But it will point you in the right direction.

Evil exists in this world.

So does good if you’re willing to open up your heart

And stop believing silver linings are all that’s needed to get you through.

I was broken like a toy soldier on a field of AstroTurf

And blood-caked mud.

I felt like it was the beginning of the end until realizing I was allowing exaggeration to get the best of me.

Trump you.

You and your cohorts are monsters and I’m sick and tired of being estranged from the truth.

The new normal of alt. facts and hyperbolic non-starters need to be taken out back and shot and while you’re at it all you pale faced feckless thugs can take your expensive haircuts and custom made suits and go get stuffed.

Healthcare is a right not a privilege and believing otherwise will only silence you in the end.

Our country deserves better than all this bizarro bullshit that some rural motherfuckers believe is in their best interest.

I am not going to Canada or anywhere outside the United States of America because this is still my country as much as it is yours and enough is clearly enough.

Charles Cicirella

6/24/17

Poem by Joni Soule

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-27T13_41_48-07_00

I told you when I give you a compliment
To look into my eyes 
So I know you received it
That you have taken it in
And cuddled me
And nurtured me 
Because I gave you that love
So you would love me back
So I would know what love means
If you would look me in the eyes
And you saw me and believed in me
You acknowledged me for all I am
From beginning to end
I am not in this moment
I breathe a sigh of relief
As I speak to myself
For the millionth time
On this earth alone and in pain
that I will seek out a new life
That moves me toward a new day
A new fucking day a brilliance
Engulfs my being into the light
I will call it time for now


Joni Soule

Vindicated

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-25T12_54_02-07_00

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You’re as guilty as Adam and Eve when they disobeyed their Father’s one command.

You think you’re pulling the wool over our sheep-led-to-slaughter-eyes and that’s simply not the case.

You were elected President by a ghost in the machine and were and will never be popular with the people.

“You’re fired” drips from your rectum-piehole like bile from Linda Blair’s possessed mouth.

A rancid opportunist obstructing justice with the small hands of a filthy priest.

Now you want us to believe you when and if you testify under oath and all I can say to that is give me a fucking break.

When’s the last time you actually told the truth? Was it when you swore you didn’t rape Ivana? Or perhaps it was when you feigned ignorance to the disappearance of Maria.

You and your pampered, entitled, elitist family of halfwits are holding a gun to the head of America and doing your damndest to wrestle us into the muck. You will not win.

Charles Eric Cicirella

6/11/17

Dizzying Beatific Circles (For Lambryah)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-19T11_34_24-07_00

I wanna hold your hand

Like in the Beatles song

Lots of fizz, no pop

We stand together

Or we stand divided

Either way the sands of time will grind us into dust

Poetry is my savior

Like a jail sentence gone awry

Jewish is the new orange if you’re into that sort of thing

And there’s nothing wrong with religion

If you’re incapable of thinking for yourself

Believing in oneself is never overrated nor overestimated

I wanna hold your gland

Just kidding or am I?

Sometimes the sillies get the best of my serious deportment

We built a fort from episodes of Bob’s Burgers, apple juice and pretzel rods

Blew each other’s minds by being good to one another and never letting up on the throttle

Our intensities joined forces and whittled away the boredom and recklessness of a lifetime wasted on staying wasted and forestalling the inevitable

Charles Cicirella

6/10/17

Point of No Return

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-13T06_42_59-07_00

Wanted to stick it inside of you, but wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that

My words come back to me in waves of mediocrity and I’m reminded of Paul Simon and how he’s now retired from the music business

Sometimes I am a parser of words, other times I’m just Charlie and that’s okay too

We break new ground when we step outside of our steam-shovel-heads and stop cowering in our comfort zones of disuse and unrhymed panty heists

I was writing about my bathroom habits when I was twenty six and very little has changed twenty plus years later

No one much pays attention, but that’s par for the course when celebrity is neither your forte nor your expressed goal

I wanted to take a tour of America, but decided I’d wait till the orange pig currently in the White House was either driven from office or tied to the mast and dumped in the sea

Welcome to the perfect storm that’s now the United States of Misery where white people prove yet again how ineffectual they can be when they’re thinking only of themselves and the hemorrhoids resting atop their slouching shoulders

I’ve been a pissant since the day I was born and that’s alright because contemptible people are oftentimes the only ones actually speaking truth to power

Wanted to call you on the phone, but decided there was no point when we were already sitting across from one another

You bit into that corned beef sandwich like it was the best thing you’ve ever had in your mouth and it made me jealous and it made me want you even more

I will always tell the truth whether under oath or not. That’s just the way I’ve always rolled and that will never change because truth will not fail you nor will it take you for a ride.

Charles Cicirella

6/12/17

People can snap apart like twigs. (For Chris Cornell)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-06-05T17_34_58-07_00

People can snap apart like twigs

It’s the way the cookie crumbles

The way the starartist dies, alone in a hotel room in Detroit

People’s voices no longer reached him

He was floating out in space with no anchor to remind him of his frailties

It sucks when all the air is sucked from your body and your consciousness caves in on itself like a condemned building or hostile takeover

We mustn’t forget we’re human to a fault and when that fault’s disconnected all hell can and will break loose

In the eye of the storm don’t forget to look up for Heavenly Aid because looking within doesn’t always do the trick

What if he woke up in the middle of a night terror and realized he was the enemy he’d been sleeping with this entire time?

People can break apart too easily in a perfect storm

Thunder and lightning the pyrotechnics we desire to separate us from the other animals in this suburban jungle of waste and squalor

Even superstars get tired and need to come down from the day to day and sometimes the only way to do that is by altogether removing themselves from the game

Charles Cicirella

5/18/17

Rattling (For Lambryah)

Rattling these chains

Nothing up my sleeves

I’m not a magician or a misanthrope and neither are you

Smell the flowers on the way to the cemetery

Don’t forget to bend down and inhale the pollen inside your audaciously cute and passionately perfect nose

I know I was here before, but that was another age when we were both in different places and the masks we may have worn hadn’t been sanded down yet by the clock and a refusal to ever grow up

Emancipation is key in these Abraham Lincoln times when nothing is what it seems and too few speak from the heart

I was out on the outskirts of town looking at an erupting volcano or two when you came upon me like a rolling roller-skate or slice of pizza topped with veggies and extra cheese

Always had a problem hanging on too tight. I believe it goes back to abandonment issues when I was a kid and the time I was sick in bed and left to my own devices with a bowl of lukewarm chicken noodle soup and a remote in need of fresh batteries

I don’t desire to own you or possess you in the least little bit

Just love when we spend time together be it on the phone or I hope soon in person

I know we’ll both be nervous, but nerves can be our friend if we just put our heads down and do the work

It’s probably true that I’m more into you than you are into me

Just look at you all hot and spicy and ready to take a good pounding

Me, yes I guess it’s true I am a cool, old dude and I know you said that with a smile on your profound lips and a twinkle in your revolving door eyes

Charles Cicirella

5/22/17

Debris (For Shiloh)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-05-02T13_46_46-07_00

Lost out here

Amid the bubblegum wrappers and improvised explosive devices

Since 911 it’s been our world because the terrorists won the very second we gave into fear

I’m not debating this

I have no conspiracy theories to offer

I just know things have changed as even Canadians now lock their front doors and grizzly bears find themselves carrying a concealed weapon

Hoping Shiloh will teach me what it means to be genderfluid because I believe even this old dog can learn a few new tricks

I don’t mean to say that genderfluidity is a trick and I hope you’ll accept my apology for my rough edges and the non-specific insults I toss out like baseballs at a home opener or meatballs rolling up another Sisyphus steep incline

Found somewhere out in left field

Discovered amidst the constipated intestines of another puffy rock and roller hell-bent to live a clean life as their opioid addiction ends up stopping them in their purple tracks

Elvis was no better as he sought absolution from one more crooked politician as he went off the reservation and his handlers continued spoon feeding him the obfuscated truth

I’ve fallen in love so many times with the idea of falling in love I’ve lost count

The streak of possessiveness I lay down on this hyperbolic highway creates only misfortune and collateral damage where once only chutes and ladders existed

I’m not much good to anyone and I am starting to question just what good all of this poetry will prove to be as I die with no one left to visit my grave

Charles Cicirella

4/30/17