I look into the eyes she painted,
The eyes our creator created
Eyes of nausea
Eyes of peril
Eyes of violence
My lips sealed by the kiss of a blue butterfly
My nose smashed and repaired by a raging bull
She stands close by a white silhouette doing her best
To remind me we’re both human and wanting
The remains of another prescribed day
Looking at your yellow railroad warning us if we breathe in
The air around Tom Paine there will be nothing left but our
Imprint and impassioned souls
She’s not painting anything less than my real face
White shafts of paint and plaster shoot from my head like
Greek or Roman pillars and I’ll never forget the way her
Antiquity smelled like wildflowers
I study the remnants of a portrait she breaks down
With every fire stroke of her bewitched fairy tale
And I’m both horrified and elated
I’m still a young lion, a novice savage desiring
Sinew and space to consume or take sanctuary in.
Charles
June 10, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Extrapolation (Part Two)
I believe I have a greater purpose
I refuse to tell you what it is
The one & only time I talked about this
I was looked at like I was crazy
And I never want to feel that way again
Where there is life
There is hope
Someone once told me hope equates fear
I no longer choose to believe this
Fear equates fear
Out in Nevada at a rest area reading Thomas Merton
Waiting for God
I must motivate myself to act
Waiting on God
The drive & willfulness exists inside of me
God has always been right here
Charles June 5, 2007
I believe I have a greater purpose
I refuse to tell you what it is
The one & only time I talked about this
I was looked at like I was crazy
And I never want to feel that way again
Where there is life
There is hope
Someone once told me hope equates fear
I no longer choose to believe this
Fear equates fear
Out in Nevada at a rest area reading Thomas Merton
Waiting for God
I must motivate myself to act
Waiting on God
The drive & willfulness exists inside of me
God has always been right here
Charles June 5, 2007
BIRTH (Part One)
There is a poem fighting to get out
I feel it moving around
When it starts to scream and kick
I will attempt extracting it
I am not your father
I am no one’s father
What I write is often not
What I am feeling and still
I attempt wrestling
Supposed genius
From this starved,
Unyielding intellect
One word leads to the next
Haven’t I seen you here before
One line begets another
Didn’t we once attempt
To love each another
There is a person fighting to go in
I can feel him beneath the surface
It makes no difference how much you resist
He’ll scratch out your eyes before surrendering
To this endless diatribe
You are not my mother
You are no one’s mother
What I believe is not often
What I cop to and still
I’m praying for something
One poem possibly leads to the next
Haven’t we already played this out
One poem like a watchtower admits failure
Haven’t we seen better nights and days
One failed relationship will hardly end your life
Or so it would seem
Charles June 2, 2007
There is a poem fighting to get out
I feel it moving around
When it starts to scream and kick
I will attempt extracting it
I am not your father
I am no one’s father
What I write is often not
What I am feeling and still
I attempt wrestling
Supposed genius
From this starved,
Unyielding intellect
One word leads to the next
Haven’t I seen you here before
One line begets another
Didn’t we once attempt
To love each another
There is a person fighting to go in
I can feel him beneath the surface
It makes no difference how much you resist
He’ll scratch out your eyes before surrendering
To this endless diatribe
You are not my mother
You are no one’s mother
What I believe is not often
What I cop to and still
I’m praying for something
One poem possibly leads to the next
Haven’t we already played this out
One poem like a watchtower admits failure
Haven’t we seen better nights and days
One failed relationship will hardly end your life
Or so it would seem
Charles June 2, 2007
Template
Must swim out of here
Find some other place
Emptiness never ending
Loss of hope a cold chill
Did I make this bed of isolation
Construct it from childhood memory
Remember calling myself on the telephone
How I never picked up until the last ring
So self conscious as a kid
Before I began writing never felt comfortable in my own skin
Martyrdom created from ancestry and failed attempts at discovering peace
Both my inner and outer selves screaming for autonomy
Must light the fuse destroy this fortress of solitude
A kind and benevolent doctor prescribed poetry
Must get back in touch with synchronicity and sacred trust
Tell myself the secret withholding nothing not even reverie
The template of our lives forged in silver and gold
Blueprints checked and rechecked before granted wings
Read the syllabus convinced there was nothing left for me
How wrong I was as my beginning and ending became one.
Charles May 28, 2007
Must swim out of here
Find some other place
Emptiness never ending
Loss of hope a cold chill
Did I make this bed of isolation
Construct it from childhood memory
Remember calling myself on the telephone
How I never picked up until the last ring
So self conscious as a kid
Before I began writing never felt comfortable in my own skin
Martyrdom created from ancestry and failed attempts at discovering peace
Both my inner and outer selves screaming for autonomy
Must light the fuse destroy this fortress of solitude
A kind and benevolent doctor prescribed poetry
Must get back in touch with synchronicity and sacred trust
Tell myself the secret withholding nothing not even reverie
The template of our lives forged in silver and gold
Blueprints checked and rechecked before granted wings
Read the syllabus convinced there was nothing left for me
How wrong I was as my beginning and ending became one.
Charles May 28, 2007
Heat and Flame
Standing next to me
I feel her heat
Reminds me of summertime,
When I was a child
Before I was born
Standing next to me
I witness her flame
Reaching fever pitch
Revelatory in
Primal speech
There is another plane
Beyond borderline and
Graveyard, a smiling desert
Filled with living souls
And roving gamblers
Our existence the gift and the promise
Heat and flame directing us toward
Inner strength and declarations of
Independence.
Charles May 26, 2007
Standing next to me
I feel her heat
Reminds me of summertime,
When I was a child
Before I was born
Standing next to me
I witness her flame
Reaching fever pitch
Revelatory in
Primal speech
There is another plane
Beyond borderline and
Graveyard, a smiling desert
Filled with living souls
And roving gamblers
Our existence the gift and the promise
Heat and flame directing us toward
Inner strength and declarations of
Independence.
Charles May 26, 2007
Alphabet Oxygen Soup
words untie the noose
tell right from wrong
pull down the curtain
last longer than breath
We must fight sickness
ghosts in the machine
hopelessness
God killers
does your skeleton possess the key to the lock
walk through walls unscathed
believe in magic
understand we’ve been sent
not abandoned here
words tie everything together
are closer to me than my next of kin
I wore an oxygen mask for the first thirteen years of my life
then I sat down and began to write and have not once looked back.
Charles May 23, 2007
words untie the noose
tell right from wrong
pull down the curtain
last longer than breath
We must fight sickness
ghosts in the machine
hopelessness
God killers
does your skeleton possess the key to the lock
walk through walls unscathed
believe in magic
understand we’ve been sent
not abandoned here
words tie everything together
are closer to me than my next of kin
I wore an oxygen mask for the first thirteen years of my life
then I sat down and began to write and have not once looked back.
Charles May 23, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
OPR (Check In – Check Out)
Dig your heels in
Kick start your hog
Boot up your computer
Ready yourself for the fight of your life
Transcendental meditation a key
Bliss awaits us when we dive
The clock struck midnight
I did not recognize its chime
The director screams Cut
And pandemonium arrives
When I sit down to write
I don’t set out to be optimistic,
Pessimistic or realistic it just happens
Or it doesn’t either way the cards must be
Shuffled and dealt
I live in a glass house, windows covered in
The steam of my own breath
There are no honor killings
It’s not paradise but we do our best
I will try to be more understanding, open minded
And kinder to the enemy within
When I was born I screamed, “I’m just a patsy”,
But no one seemed to hear and it still seems that
Way today
She sits in her room on a chair near the T.V.
Like the caterpillar sitting on the mushroom
It would appear she has all the answers when
In actuality she possesses no useful knowledge
About anything
If all we do is find fault in others what’s the point?
If we’re not contributing anything other than collateral
Damage why go on?
“Theres blood in the streets, its up to my ankles
Theres blood on the streets, its up to my knee”*
Charlie May 20, 2007
*”Peace Frog” (Morrison Hotel) – The Doors
Dig your heels in
Kick start your hog
Boot up your computer
Ready yourself for the fight of your life
Transcendental meditation a key
Bliss awaits us when we dive
The clock struck midnight
I did not recognize its chime
The director screams Cut
And pandemonium arrives
When I sit down to write
I don’t set out to be optimistic,
Pessimistic or realistic it just happens
Or it doesn’t either way the cards must be
Shuffled and dealt
I live in a glass house, windows covered in
The steam of my own breath
There are no honor killings
It’s not paradise but we do our best
I will try to be more understanding, open minded
And kinder to the enemy within
When I was born I screamed, “I’m just a patsy”,
But no one seemed to hear and it still seems that
Way today
She sits in her room on a chair near the T.V.
Like the caterpillar sitting on the mushroom
It would appear she has all the answers when
In actuality she possesses no useful knowledge
About anything
If all we do is find fault in others what’s the point?
If we’re not contributing anything other than collateral
Damage why go on?
“Theres blood in the streets, its up to my ankles
Theres blood on the streets, its up to my knee”*
Charlie May 20, 2007
*”Peace Frog” (Morrison Hotel) – The Doors
Friday, May 18, 2007
Screened In
I escape into music and movies
My entire life a one act play
Where the hero and the villain
Are one and the same.
Forced to choose Pro-Life or Pro-Choice,
To believe in either The Immaculate Conception
Or the Big Bang and I’m not entirely convinced
Either one represents anything more than another war
On a consciousness I no longer can defend in good
Faith.
I’ve been asked where I was when the world began
And I answered right here scratching myself like some
Primate too smart for its own good. I’ve been asked what
If any regrets I have and I admit taking my cat Apple Cider
To the APL is one of the most regrettable things I have ever
Done.
I escape into the Internet and creative endeavors
Aware that what I have to share no one may actually
Care to hear. I’m screened in with the knowledge
Suicide is not an option nor has it ever been.
I’m muddling along with an identity I’m not quite certain
I any longer trust or believe in.
Charles May 18, 2007
I escape into music and movies
My entire life a one act play
Where the hero and the villain
Are one and the same.
Forced to choose Pro-Life or Pro-Choice,
To believe in either The Immaculate Conception
Or the Big Bang and I’m not entirely convinced
Either one represents anything more than another war
On a consciousness I no longer can defend in good
Faith.
I’ve been asked where I was when the world began
And I answered right here scratching myself like some
Primate too smart for its own good. I’ve been asked what
If any regrets I have and I admit taking my cat Apple Cider
To the APL is one of the most regrettable things I have ever
Done.
I escape into the Internet and creative endeavors
Aware that what I have to share no one may actually
Care to hear. I’m screened in with the knowledge
Suicide is not an option nor has it ever been.
I’m muddling along with an identity I’m not quite certain
I any longer trust or believe in.
Charles May 18, 2007
Gettysburg
We are bleeding
Don’t care how over the top that sounds
We are bleeding like stuck pigs.
No one gives a damn
A higher consciousness thrown out with both the baby and the bathwater
A highway of diamonds mined and left barren.
Our minds diagnosed with brain cancer
Our hearts ridden with lost causes and misanthropic mind games
Our love for life traded in for conspiracy theories proven all too real.
Gimme some truth?
No longer can it be separated from cloak and dagger wild-goose-chases
Gimme some truth?
Why so you can placate it until it no longer represents anything but a misguided Sermon on the Mont.
We are bleeding from the outside in
You say the situation is not yet that desperate
And I say to you the situation is beyond desperate and has been broken and out of commission long before you hid yourself in an ivory tower with all the amenities necessary to keep you and others like you solvent for a thousand years.
We must arm ourselves
Gut instincts and bullets only thing that will now get some actual results
Street philosophers and castaway professors must extract themselves from their tenure and breathe new life where only death remains
We must find a way to dial back the rhetoric and push through this once hallowed now haunted and forsaken burying ground.
Let’s save the world now.
Charles May 18, 2007
We are bleeding
Don’t care how over the top that sounds
We are bleeding like stuck pigs.
No one gives a damn
A higher consciousness thrown out with both the baby and the bathwater
A highway of diamonds mined and left barren.
Our minds diagnosed with brain cancer
Our hearts ridden with lost causes and misanthropic mind games
Our love for life traded in for conspiracy theories proven all too real.
Gimme some truth?
No longer can it be separated from cloak and dagger wild-goose-chases
Gimme some truth?
Why so you can placate it until it no longer represents anything but a misguided Sermon on the Mont.
We are bleeding from the outside in
You say the situation is not yet that desperate
And I say to you the situation is beyond desperate and has been broken and out of commission long before you hid yourself in an ivory tower with all the amenities necessary to keep you and others like you solvent for a thousand years.
We must arm ourselves
Gut instincts and bullets only thing that will now get some actual results
Street philosophers and castaway professors must extract themselves from their tenure and breathe new life where only death remains
We must find a way to dial back the rhetoric and push through this once hallowed now haunted and forsaken burying ground.
Let’s save the world now.
Charles May 18, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Passion
I’m a prisoner of a war fought within.
Spending too much time inside my mind
And not enough time in this body.
I’m tired of my reckless behavior,
Tired of going against the grain
Tired of watching so many movies
Knowing exactly how they will end.
They poisoned our pets
Next they’ll come after us
First they’ll round up the artists,
Philosophers and hopeless romantics then they’ll
Come after the educators, Jews and Christians.
No one is safe from this self inflicted wound,
This stigmata we once believed noble and without
Vice. You can only live for so long alongside a
God Complex before it consumes your life.
The false-poets and false-prophets told you this day
Would come, stood in the center of town going on
And on about the end of the word and the beginning
Of silence.
When ends refuse to meet and static electricity no longer
Raises the dead what will it take for us to finally wake up
And pay attention to this monster we created in our own
Image and then so blatantly ignored.
Charles
May 12, 2007
Enemy Combatant
media soaked in blood
fear used as a tool to rule the ruling class
war on drugs
war on terror
doesn’t mean anything
empty words
empty promises
blowing in this american wind
media soaked in piss
the president of these united states
giving unto us a golden shower
as the vice president deals in black gold
and blowing away anyone who dares
question his police state politics or
questionable business practices
i’m tired of all this doom and gloom
tired of a golden horizon just out of reach
tired of words like freedom, liberty, democracy
having come to mean nothing and I’m sick and
tired of the apathy we as a people settle for everyday
i can not watch the news anymore
too much of a heartbreak
can no longer stomach the political twisting
of words and bodies as we become more deeply
entrenched in someone else’s problem, someone
else’s headache
we didn’t create this mess
we didn’t vote for these war mongers and war profiteers
we did not sanction all of this blood spilled in the name
of what? in the name of who?
too many trapdoors
too many tongues wagging and flags waving
as we go an extra mile and in fact only become
mired in more shit and amputated limbs
we’re shooting at the wrong people, killing the wrong bad men
we must turn the rifles on ourselves, burn our own villages to
the ground before it's too late.
Charles May 12, 2007
I’m a prisoner of a war fought within.
Spending too much time inside my mind
And not enough time in this body.
I’m tired of my reckless behavior,
Tired of going against the grain
Tired of watching so many movies
Knowing exactly how they will end.
They poisoned our pets
Next they’ll come after us
First they’ll round up the artists,
Philosophers and hopeless romantics then they’ll
Come after the educators, Jews and Christians.
No one is safe from this self inflicted wound,
This stigmata we once believed noble and without
Vice. You can only live for so long alongside a
God Complex before it consumes your life.
The false-poets and false-prophets told you this day
Would come, stood in the center of town going on
And on about the end of the word and the beginning
Of silence.
When ends refuse to meet and static electricity no longer
Raises the dead what will it take for us to finally wake up
And pay attention to this monster we created in our own
Image and then so blatantly ignored.
Charles
May 12, 2007
Enemy Combatant
media soaked in blood
fear used as a tool to rule the ruling class
war on drugs
war on terror
doesn’t mean anything
empty words
empty promises
blowing in this american wind
media soaked in piss
the president of these united states
giving unto us a golden shower
as the vice president deals in black gold
and blowing away anyone who dares
question his police state politics or
questionable business practices
i’m tired of all this doom and gloom
tired of a golden horizon just out of reach
tired of words like freedom, liberty, democracy
having come to mean nothing and I’m sick and
tired of the apathy we as a people settle for everyday
i can not watch the news anymore
too much of a heartbreak
can no longer stomach the political twisting
of words and bodies as we become more deeply
entrenched in someone else’s problem, someone
else’s headache
we didn’t create this mess
we didn’t vote for these war mongers and war profiteers
we did not sanction all of this blood spilled in the name
of what? in the name of who?
too many trapdoors
too many tongues wagging and flags waving
as we go an extra mile and in fact only become
mired in more shit and amputated limbs
we’re shooting at the wrong people, killing the wrong bad men
we must turn the rifles on ourselves, burn our own villages to
the ground before it's too late.
Charles May 12, 2007
Living Proof
I feel most alive when writing
It’s just that way
So it goes..
Questioning everything
Is this sentence too long
Should I use a comma or semicolon
Why am I working in another kitchen
Ready to blow out my brains with the
Realization that the greatness I believed
Was around the next bend is just another
Stuffed shirt, another painted sunset.
I don’t feel displaced when punching the keys,
Don’t feel so out of my element or wishing I were
Some other place. The other day I took a walk down
This street I use to know when a teenager, my friend
David Molinaro lived there with his Uncle Lou, sisters
Sharon and Linda and her daughter Melissa, it was a
Time of experimentation and confusion, a time of alliances
Formed and then forsaken.
Living proof that our dreams can work for or against us
We know only as much as we’re designated to know the rest
Is made up as we travel down a highway of silhouettes and
Shadows. Kneeling next to my bed reciting The Lord’s Prayer
I hear my voice in the darkness as both a stronghold and a vice.
Charles
May 6, 2007
I feel most alive when writing
It’s just that way
So it goes..
Questioning everything
Is this sentence too long
Should I use a comma or semicolon
Why am I working in another kitchen
Ready to blow out my brains with the
Realization that the greatness I believed
Was around the next bend is just another
Stuffed shirt, another painted sunset.
I don’t feel displaced when punching the keys,
Don’t feel so out of my element or wishing I were
Some other place. The other day I took a walk down
This street I use to know when a teenager, my friend
David Molinaro lived there with his Uncle Lou, sisters
Sharon and Linda and her daughter Melissa, it was a
Time of experimentation and confusion, a time of alliances
Formed and then forsaken.
Living proof that our dreams can work for or against us
We know only as much as we’re designated to know the rest
Is made up as we travel down a highway of silhouettes and
Shadows. Kneeling next to my bed reciting The Lord’s Prayer
I hear my voice in the darkness as both a stronghold and a vice.
Charles
May 6, 2007
Jesus Wept (2007)
Crawl inside the Earth
True sacrifice outlawed
Crawl inside benevolence.
What part you playing
A sheep in wolves’ clothing,
A pragmatist with no common sense
Crawl outside Heaven
Do you wish you were younger,
Crave money or a quick fix
Will you ever be happy,
Curiosity quenched, gluttony sanctified
Crawl on your hands and knees
His Father mistook him for someone else
Crawl inside the Sun and burn.
Charles
May 2, 2007
Crawl inside the Earth
True sacrifice outlawed
Crawl inside benevolence.
What part you playing
A sheep in wolves’ clothing,
A pragmatist with no common sense
Crawl outside Heaven
Do you wish you were younger,
Crave money or a quick fix
Will you ever be happy,
Curiosity quenched, gluttony sanctified
Crawl on your hands and knees
His Father mistook him for someone else
Crawl inside the Sun and burn.
Charles
May 2, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Realm
Scratching
Turning
Twisting
Modesto, California
Another dustbowl
Another dead-end
I remember Death Valley
Hans the German tourist
Orange juice and oatmeal
Sleeping
Walking
Gambling
Writing
Pissing
Shitting
Lancaster, California
Another pawnshop
Another dead man
I remember dry heat
Pony rides
Diamondbacks
Praying
Purging
Pandering
Wrestling
Waiting
Waiting
Charles
April 29, 2007
Scratching
Turning
Twisting
Modesto, California
Another dustbowl
Another dead-end
I remember Death Valley
Hans the German tourist
Orange juice and oatmeal
Sleeping
Walking
Gambling
Writing
Pissing
Shitting
Lancaster, California
Another pawnshop
Another dead man
I remember dry heat
Pony rides
Diamondbacks
Praying
Purging
Pandering
Wrestling
Waiting
Waiting
Charles
April 29, 2007
day to day
walking across the bridge the other day
thought about diving, plunging, flying
not because I ever would
not because I ever could
walking across the bridge today
wind blowing on my face
cars hurrying by too busy to stop and smell the concrete
I felt tremendously alive
there were no constraints holding me back
no bars leveling the playing field by offering nothing
but isolation
I live in this body and no one else’s
in fact we’re all only renting until moving on
to another kind of summer house
I drank the glass of water that was half full until it was empty
I evaded responsibility until I had all the time left in this world
we must live and let live like it’s our last day on Earth
scraping the bone of our brains until the pencil bends than breaks
a thousand mirrors and not one reflection that makes any sense
a million impressions made and only the first one really counts
when my uncle died the only thing I took from his house was
Marlon Brando’s autobiography, when my best friend hung himself
I knew he was no longer committed to much of anything
there are no escape hatches
failsafe is never foolproof.
Charles Cicirella
April 28, 2007
(for Lynda Sams)
walking across the bridge the other day
thought about diving, plunging, flying
not because I ever would
not because I ever could
walking across the bridge today
wind blowing on my face
cars hurrying by too busy to stop and smell the concrete
I felt tremendously alive
there were no constraints holding me back
no bars leveling the playing field by offering nothing
but isolation
I live in this body and no one else’s
in fact we’re all only renting until moving on
to another kind of summer house
I drank the glass of water that was half full until it was empty
I evaded responsibility until I had all the time left in this world
we must live and let live like it’s our last day on Earth
scraping the bone of our brains until the pencil bends than breaks
a thousand mirrors and not one reflection that makes any sense
a million impressions made and only the first one really counts
when my uncle died the only thing I took from his house was
Marlon Brando’s autobiography, when my best friend hung himself
I knew he was no longer committed to much of anything
there are no escape hatches
failsafe is never foolproof.
Charles Cicirella
April 28, 2007
(for Lynda Sams)
"two minute whiplike threads of protoplasm"
I’m not afraid of the dark
Afraid of a demon reaching up and stealing my identity
I am my own demon, angel, transient being.
Duck ponds remind me of our love affair
As do promiscuous squirrels and Mediterranean food.
First time I rode a bike in over ten years was with you.
I’ll never forget how much you sounded like Howlin’ Wolf
Or Bob Dylan when he says, “thank you”.
You told me I was a bad writer and it cut me to the quick.
Not sure why your opinion means so much or why
I became so overwrought when you refused to listen.
Going to the library bittersweet since our breakup,
Checking my email nowhere near as exciting nor is
Talking about music or looking at clothes.
I was like a kid in a candy store when we first recognized
Each other at that ballpark on the outskirts of town.
I know you don’t understand what it is I’m doing or why my life
Is always in such a state of disrepair while I dispense of the rules
And go my own way. I want so badly to be a hero, a visionary, a
Romantic figure and perhaps I am or perhaps I’m not.
We stand alongside an infinitesimal number of golden rules
Praying we don’t break beneath the pressure or begin seeing
Ourselves through someone else’s eyes and all I want is to
Figure out how to not look back so I can move forward
Instead of sideways or backwards.
Charles
April 25, 2007
I’m not afraid of the dark
Afraid of a demon reaching up and stealing my identity
I am my own demon, angel, transient being.
Duck ponds remind me of our love affair
As do promiscuous squirrels and Mediterranean food.
First time I rode a bike in over ten years was with you.
I’ll never forget how much you sounded like Howlin’ Wolf
Or Bob Dylan when he says, “thank you”.
You told me I was a bad writer and it cut me to the quick.
Not sure why your opinion means so much or why
I became so overwrought when you refused to listen.
Going to the library bittersweet since our breakup,
Checking my email nowhere near as exciting nor is
Talking about music or looking at clothes.
I was like a kid in a candy store when we first recognized
Each other at that ballpark on the outskirts of town.
I know you don’t understand what it is I’m doing or why my life
Is always in such a state of disrepair while I dispense of the rules
And go my own way. I want so badly to be a hero, a visionary, a
Romantic figure and perhaps I am or perhaps I’m not.
We stand alongside an infinitesimal number of golden rules
Praying we don’t break beneath the pressure or begin seeing
Ourselves through someone else’s eyes and all I want is to
Figure out how to not look back so I can move forward
Instead of sideways or backwards.
Charles
April 25, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
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