I'm Clean

I took a shower.
Was tired of smelling my unfavorable self.
I wiped the slate clean.
Was tired of the chalk getting on my fingers.

I know you’re not Thomas Jefferson or some other revolutionary thinker who couldn’t keep it in their pants. That’s no surprise though when starting a new country from scratch.
Soon I will listen to the new Leonard Cohen record. I really haven’t found myself moved since Ten New Songs, but I know that could change in an instant.
I know you’re not thinking about me like I’m thinking about you, but that’s probably because you don’t live inside of your mind twenty four hours a day, seven days a week with hardly a break even for good behavior.

I took a shower.
Was tired of smelling my uncomplimentary past.
I wiped the sweat from my eyes.
Was tired of the chalk outline on my letterhead.

It’s time to repave these timeworn streets with something more than just lingering memories.
It’s time I either pulled myself up by the bootstraps or laid down and died for the final time.
I’m not counting on reincarnation this time around because the elasticity of my religion only lasts as long as my boxers comfortably fit.
I swear to God I never kept any secrets from you except for the secrets I also kept from myself.

I drank the grape juice and pretended it was grape juice.
I poked myself in the eye and pretended it was just like old times.
I chased you around the apartment because you wouldn’t give me my way. I’ll never forget when you ran into the street and left me completely behind.

Charles Cicirella
9/15/14

Heavyweight Champion Of The World

(For Bob Dylan)

Down for the count, but not dead yet.
Just remember death is not the end.
Swallowing fire and spitting out prophecy.
All along the watchtower, our enemies burn like friendless torches.

If this poetry does not define me, I’m not sure anything will.
The words wash over me like rhythm and blues.
I hear his voice, and my fears fall down like a savior’s tears.
Late last night you came a-rollin’ across my mind.

It was 1988 and nothing was happening.
I was working the graveyard shift at a gas station.
At the time this record didn’t do anything for me.
Now when I play it, even my close Dylan friends think I’ve lost my mind.

Down for the count but I’m still alive, and that must count for something.
I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain. You give something up for everything you gain.
The tears of a clown won’t save us, but hasn’t it always been the thought that counts?
I know you’re in darkness, but trust me there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

I was in the desert looking for a sign.
I looked up when a stop sign appeared and a voice asked if I needed a ride.
The driver gave me the twenty one dollars that he had.
I swear to God you can get relief if you just open your heart and mind to the miracles existing all around you.

Charles Cicirella
9/13/14

Diet

I am digesting remnants.
It’s 5:38 AM and I am eating a slice of pepperoni pizza.
My childhood needed salt as many childhoods do.

You can forget about the coming attractions.
My fingers are greasy as I press down the keys.
Someone’s coughing in the other room.

My diet consists of consonants, but not enough vowels.
We’d watch Wheel of Fortune as she recovered from surgery.
Earlier today I heard some news I still do not wish to accept.

I am digesting fragments.
It’s 5:43 AM and I am eating the crust of a slice of pepperoni pizza.
My adulthood needs reexamining as many adulthoods do.

The first poem I wrote was about the moon.
At first I did not even know it was a poem. That’s when my life truthfully began.
Some pills are harder to swallow than others and that’s why God gave us water to drink.

Charles Cicirella
9/7/14

Lashing Out

Flogging myself with negative thoughts.
Have you ever awoken from a deep sleep and come to the conclusion you’re not treating yourself with enough respect?
Sometimes when I was a kid and played doctor I’d pray I was the receptionist and didn’t have to perform any of the heavy breathing.

Lagging behind because I will not permit the pit crew to change my tires or perform any of the other routine maintenance my racecar may require.
When it comes to fools, I’m the biggest fool of them all, and I don’t need a tape measure to make good on this claim.
All you have to do is look into my eyes to soon realize nobody is home and that there hasn’t been for decades.

I listen back to my poetry and believe that it’s good, but where exactly does that get me. Is it possible to trade in some of these words for a ham sandwich and nice refreshing lemonade?
I understand when you’re an artist, worrying about material things is beyond ridiculous, but I’m starting to think I may have reached a point where taking care of me is more important than the next art installation.
I don’t doubt for a second that hard work, dedication and sacrifice are essential factors when doing your best to make something happen, but what if nothing is happening and all you seem to be doing is trying the patience of those who also happen to be supporting you.

Standing on the side of the highway trying to flag down a ride.
It’s pitch dark, and I know my chances of getting picked up are slim to none.
It may be time to take off the kid gloves and experience some hard knocks before I am folded up and put back into a trunk like some ventriloquist’s dummy.

Charles Cicirella
9/10/14

Child's Fort

I remember trying to fall asleep when I was a child.
I built a fort inside of my mind and nothing, not even death could reach me.
The only watch I've ever owned was a Timex Snoopy Watch. I believe that’s the only time when the concept of time was not so wishy-washy or completely foreign to me.

We non-exist like a child bride waiting for a stranger to buy her for twelve dollars and treat her worse than a piece of property.
If you’re ever in doubt that humanity is in short supply, just turn on the news and remember that the road to hell is paved with both the bones of the guilty and of the innocent.
Every silver lining has a cloud and for every glass half full, there are shards of broken glass carpet bombing the unswept desert like bloody rose petals.

I remember not being able to fall asleep when I was a child.
My mother told me to imagine a blackboard and to erase all of the thoughts inside my head.
For some reason I remember thinking about JFK and all kinds of other things that no child would ever be thinking about. It did not help me to fall asleep any faster, but I did finally grow tired thinking about how messed up I was for such a little kid.

Bobby and Donald had a tree house and my mother forbade me to go up inside so I stayed down below all by myself.
For some reason I believed if I went up into that tree house my mother would find out, and that scared me to death.
I built a child’s fort inside my psyche and to this day I am still ripping away the two by fours trying desperately to find the inner child I sealed away so many years ago.

Charles Cicirella
9/15/14

Ramen Noodles

I just finished a bowl of Ramen Noodles.
They were nothing to write home about, but I enjoyed them all the same.
I have another dollar and look forward to buying a candy bar tomorrow.

I’m living day to day, poem to poem, daybreak to daybreak.
I’ve always known sacrifice would be the key. I just did not comprehend how difficult finding the door would be.
I’m sitting here waiting for the words to advance. There’s nothing to be gained by rushing through the procedure because the patient living or dying is not up to you.

Creativity is my sworn enemy and I will wrestle with it until the day I am finally released from this self-imposed cellular degeneration.
The words fall to the ground like flakes of skin from a leper or flayed victim.
I have always played for keeps even before understanding how counter-intuitive the Grand Inquisitor’s denunciation of Jesus would ultimately turn out to be.

I just finished a bowl of awkward silences.
They were nothing much to write home about, but I deplored them all the same.
I have another dollar and look forward to bribing you when we meet up again in the streets like beggars or electric sheep.

Charles Cicirella
9/9/14

Carthage Domain

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152767444817774&l=8494170439470865898

"The Almighty Has Terrified Me"

I will suspend disbelief for a little while and believe this chocolate bar is God.
My father lives in Florida, but sometimes you have to take what you get and accept handouts are not always handed out for free.
I wish that this chocolate bar had almonds, but beggars cannot be choosers, especially when it has to do with serotonin levels and adjusting your expectations to maximum resplendency.

The Almighty has terrified me, but that’s alright because I’ve always known being one of the 144,000 chosen would not be a walk in the park, especially when competition is so stiff and everyone seems to have forgotten Jesus Christ was born, died and raised again a Jew.
Genocide is such an overplayed hand, and the fear mongers and the brown shirts best stop pushing such a hateful and ignorant agenda because sooner or later the people will finally have had enough and will rise up against their oppressors, leaving no stone or cheek unturned.
The Almighty has terrified me into believing more in myself because the calm before the storm has been placed into receivership, and no ark is going to be large enough to save everyone and that includes all of the animals and coveted humans this time around.
  
I will suspend disbelief for the time being and believe this chocolate bar is calling me.
My real father is up in Heaven even though I am finding that increasingly more difficult to believe. I am not programmed to look forward to much of anything, not even having a real life beyond this splendid isolation.
I wish I was going to more than just one Bob Dylan concert this tour. He is the only thing I’ve found that more than exceeds my expectations, but beggars cannot be choosers, especially when heading for another joint before the distance swallows you whole and spits you out in little, insignificant pieces and parts.

Charles Cicirella
9/8/14

My Self-Esteem Is In The Shitter

Just realized I have not a single person in my life to tell me they love me.
Wonder if I’ll ever be able to lift myself from this morass I’ve created.
My self-esteem is in the shitter, and it’s no surprise when there is no one there to talk to and I spend all of my time completely isolated from another human being.

My self-esteem has called it quits as I lie here on this killing floor wondering how things have gotten so out of control and why the part I always seem to play is either of the loner or lone gunman.
I have assassinated my own good will by going up into the clock tower and focusing only on my targets, never once just enjoying the view.
I’m in the bathroom of my mind, and there’s not enough toilet paper to wipe away how poorly I’m feeling.

We had Chinese food last night, but someone stole my fortune cookie.
Wondering how long I’ll be able to go on like this before the bubble bursts or worse I discover myself trapped inside of the bubble like John Travolta in that awful made-for-TV movie.
My self-esteem is in the shitter as I consider changing my name to Lazarus and praying for a savior to raise me from the dead.

Charles Cicirella
9/11/14

Abe Lincoln

Go ahead and strip me down to my bare essentials.
When it’s come to slavery, I’ve always been a willing participant as long as when my emancipation arrives, I’m given a good book to read and a seat by the window.
I’m tired of all your speechifying because when push comes to shove, your pragmatism hardly shoves enough.

Abraham Lincoln was a really good leader. At least that’s what history tells us as we put down the current issue of Time and allow the past to speak to us through facts, not non-fiction.
I don’t need a litmus test to know I’m a liberal and proud to be one just like I don’t need a weatherman to show me how intolerant too many people are when it comes to our very first black President of the United States.
Right there in the title is the word united, and yet it’s depressing how many people have forgotten what this word means or that it ever existed in the first place.

Go ahead and lay me bare in front of all my most fervent of detractors because I’ve never had anything to hide and believe the truth will set every one of us free once we can agree upon one truth indivisible for all.
You cannot write a document and say all men are created equal when the only men you actually meant were rich white men.
Looks like we’re being goaded to again go to war because the neocons are never happy unless we’re occupying someone. I understand some boogeymen are very real and must be dealt with. What I am having a difficult time understanding is why it is always America that must take the fight to these assholes.

Charles Cicirella
9/10/14

Ruminations

Punched in the gut again by events I cannot control.
It’s the way of the world when nothing seems to be going your way.
Listen to the voice on the radio and know soon you’ll be submerged beneath the waves.

Cogitations like partially digested food. Like ponderings of transient thoughts going nowhere.
I was attracted to her distress and how she spent hours in the bathroom picking at her skin.
I was attracted to how she never appeared to wrinkle even when a stitch in time was bearing down on her and she was lost in the ruminations of her own restless legs syndrome.

Bukowski was a pugilist as much as he was a poet and a loner and a madman.
I wish I could have driven around Hollywood with him in that BMW he bought with movie money.
I’ll never forget watching a documentary about him and how disgusted I was when watching him become more and more enraged as he kicked his wife off of the couch.

Punched in the gut by hunger pangs and the inane banality of it all.
It’s the way of the world especially when you’re as dull as paste and even the paste is more interesting.
Listen to the voices in your head just long enough to know they’re full of shit and that soon you’ll be ruminating on another blue Sunday.

Charles Cicirella
9/6/14

Third Eye Revolution Charles Cicirella - poetry and voice 9/5/14

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152744799527774&l=3246317829082326076

Charles Cicirella reading at the open mic. at Writing Knights - Monday, August 25, 2014, Hosted by Azriel Johnson. - at Cultured Coffee Co. Canton, OH.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152744741172774&l=1224166601110567021

My review of Juliet Cook's NEW poetry chapbook - RED DEMOLITION -

Glitter Witch Repellant

Crack open this plethora of poems before they spoil. Before these rancid meat popsicles mutate into something even less salvageable and more worthy of contempt. You don’t read Juliet’s poems; no instead you shoot them into your temporal lobe and pray you don’t hemorrhage or worse yet survive this bloodletting. These poems speak to you with their twisted, sworn to secrecy mouths and soulless pinprick eyes. There is so much being dredged up that letting yourself off the hook is no longer an option as you turn another swollen page and die a little more inside. Snap open this murder of poems before you’re all red and swollen like a pimple or prick ready to pop or crackle like sugary cereal with an axe to grind. If you’ve ever wondered what collateral damage looks like up close and personal go and get yourself a copy of Red Demolition and remember you were warned. And remember when you were burned at the stake.

Charles Cicirella

9/5/14

published by Shirt Pocket Press and available for a mere six bucks here -  

http://shirtpocketpress.wordpress.com/catalog/

Third Eye Desolation

(For Dan Klute)

There's blood in the streets; it's up to my ankles.
Blood in the streets; it's up to my knee.
And I do not care what anyone says because The Doors are not just some band you listen to during your adolescence. In fact I still listen to them because they speak the truth through the blues, reds, and sonic booms.

I am waiting for the phone to ring.
I am awaiting another muse, another queen of the highway, another third, fourth, or fifth second coming to arrive and move these chess pieces around the board.
I had money, yeah, and I had none, but I was never so broke that I couldn’t buy a ticket to your show.

We’re led to believe good things come to those who wait, and if you believe that, I have a timeshare to sell you that is on the dark side of the moon.
Third eye desolation is a plague, and if you don’t get what I’m saying, don’t sweat it because you’ll soon be dead or filthy rich and living on an island with someone who you love to despise.
The cars hiss by my window like the waves down on the beach. We’re all being led to slaughter with every single Facebook message we post and smartphone app we download.

Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness.
Blood in the streets is up to my thigh.
And I do not care what anyone says because James Douglas Morrison was an American poet who slithered through the LA streets like a lizard in need of alcohol and a shaman who would listen to his moonlight driven prayers for a sacred kind of sweet desolation.

Charles Cicirella
9/3/14

No More Laughter

(For Robin Williams)

He hung himself.

Sat in a chair with a pocket knife and made some superficial cuts to the inside of his left wrist.

Was he out of punchlines?

While making so many others happy, on the inside was he screaming for help?

In the Dairy Queen picture he looked so gaunt and frail.

Were all the many voices in his head overcrowding and overwhelming any hope for inner peace?

Improvising on stage without a net is hard enough.

Improvising in life without a net is a whole other tin cylinder of napalm.

He stood up there on stage conducting a symphony of jokes with his unstoppable energy.

He stood in front of us showing just how beautiful and human a court jester can be.

I have a feeling he was tired of making promises to himself he knew he would not keep.

I have a feeling he was sick and tired of feeling so dead inside while there was so much life all around him that he could not afford to let in.

He hung himself.

In a room all by himself he made a choice that ended his life and I pray also ended his pain.

Charles Cicirella

8/17/14

I Like To Watch

(For Robin Williams)

I am watching porn, but I’m not paying attention.

I cannot believe he’s gone, but there are a lot of things I cannot believe that I still somehow must learn to accept.

I’m thinking of another period when an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth actually meant more than just beating yourself up and tearing yourself down.

I pretend I’m happy.

I know it’s a dangerous pastime, but I’ve always lived on the edge, especially when denial is the only drug that makes any honest to God sense.

Go ahead tell me I’m full of shit. I am used to your disapproval and unhappiness.

There’s a bridge to nowhere and a bridge to somewhere, and someday maybe I’ll discover what exists in-between.

I was naïve enough to believe poetry would save me, but at forty five I am starting to understand nothing will save any one of us and all we’re doing is putting off the inevitable.

I like to stand back and watch.

I like to take a leap of faith every decade or so.

I wouldn’t even mind falling in love if it lasted longer than the time it takes to clean up the mess.

Stop telling me I’ll never change.

I already have enough white noise in my head, and you’re not helping with all your status quo bullshit and bad energy.

I am finding it hard to accept he decided to go, but who can really blame him when the laughter and the applause were no longer doing the trick and all he was left with was the silence.

Charles Cicirella

8/13/2014

Number Twelve

I’m not awake.

I’m sleeping.

I’m not alive.

I’m dying.

I remember walking down the wood paneled hallway.

I remember feeling like I was drunk.

I remember the ghosts crowding me.

We’re not present.

We’re past.

We’re not star artists.

We’re stand-ins.

I remember you walking toward me.

I remember feeling like I was happy.

I remember you laughing at my jokes.

This may be a success or it may be a failure.

Inspiration comes in drips and drabs.

Sometimes we’re hell-bent on a recovery, other times we just want to pass the test.

Charles Cicirella

8/8/14

Number Eleven

I desire to write another poem.

I can feel it on the tip of my fingers and tongue.

I hope it’s not a false alarm.

It’s five in the morning.

My cell phone hasn’t rung in decades.

No one ever calls because they know I’ll just end up cutting them off.

This is number eleven.

I thought I might possibly be on a roll.

Thing is I may have jumped the gun or worse yet swallowed the barrel and pulled the trigger.

I wonder if I’ll ever experience physical intimacy again.

I don’t even mean sex or whatever the equivalent of sex is in the twenty-first century.

I’d settle for holding hands and maybe sliding into first by the end of the date.

Soon I will lie down on a sleeping bag on my mother’s floor and close my eyes.

When I wake up it will be around three in the afternoon and I’ll have accomplished nothing.

Truth is I don’t like guns and even if I owned one I wouldn’t be able to afford the bullets.

Charles Cicirella

8/8/14

Number Ten

Out live

Out last

Out do

Wear down fate by looking fear squarely in the eye.

Replenish happiness with mystical assurances from a benevolent creator.

Replenish hope with blessed charity.

Insource

Inroads

Insanity

Clearly your pact made all the difference with the talent you’ve been crowned with.

Clearly the crossroads means more to you than just a place to sell your soul.

Clearly when daylight comes you’re already heading for the next staging ground.

We’re going up around the bend.

We’re going to make amends before another innocent bystander is found guiltless and executed for someone else’s goodness.

We’re going to break the speed of sound by playing fucking loud and never once allowing Judas to do our dirty work for us.

Charles Cicirella

8/6/14