Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Unconditional Heartache (For Juliet)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-09T12_04_20-07_00

I reach out to her.
She reaches inside of me.
Last time I saw her she was wearing gold pants. Somehow she pulled them off like only she can pull off the unconventional and unfashionable heartbreaks of man.

I like her friend Darryl quite a bit.
Even though I don’t think he knows what to make of me. Especially with the history that he knows exists between me and Juliet.
Darryl doesn’t have to worry though because I’m no one’s Romeo especially when it comes to high balconies and suffering vertigo or even worse the fate of another blow to my stained glass ego.

There was a time when I was seeking an accomplice to join me on my insane exploits and weak attempts at Gonzo Journalism, but I have learned by now my soulmate is either long dead or doing their best to stay hidden because they know I would consume them with my overtaxed personality and bad habit of always needing to be heard over the din of love and the clamoring of an insufferable mob of idiot savants inside my head.
I haven’t a clue if Juliet ever really got me, but I do know that at one time she dug my Root Cellar growl and the way I had of appearing ten feet tall on a stage when I’m only 5’2 or maybe 5’3 on a really excellent day.
We sped up each other’s hearts for a while until I became way too clingy for anyone’s mental health and started pulling out my hair and giving myself black eyes because I didn’t believe she was listening to what I had to say.

I would tell you it’s my artistic temperament that gets the best of me, but I know that would be a lie and would not be fair to those artists who don’t possess the tools to stay on the straight and narrow and are instead swallowed by the darkness like another slab of ruined meat.
I have the most difficult time listening to another person’s point of view especially when I am dead set on making a connection before it is too late and I am once again alone with my cruel thoughts and unsmiling nature.
I think I have suffered abandonment issues since long before I took public transportation out of the womb and landed smack dab in front of a typewriter or word processor trying to set the record straight. I’m not actually a wounded animal even though I play one on TV. I’m also not exactly a tragic figure even though I gravitate toward this way of non-living because I have always struggled with taking responsibility and making good on the promise that I would help change the world before I was shot down or shot full of everlasting grief.

Charles Cicirella
8/28/15

Sunday, September 06, 2015

BM

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-06T20_22_08-07_00

I just pooped.
I like to call it my morning constitutional even though it’s 4:29 in the afternoon.
I stole that from somewhere. I don’t remember where and I don’t really care because it doesn’t really matter. In the greater or lesser scheme of things everyone gets their dues and their don’ts.

I told her to try and approach the song as an old European murder ballad. She’ll more than likely not listen and I guess that’s to be expected.
She did cover “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” at my urging though and look how that turned out.
The way she sneaks up on a song and makes it her own scares me into an early grave. She was seventeen when I first heard her sing and it changed everything for me. Everything.

There are some things I just will not write about no matter how much you offer to pay me or wink at me out of your one good eye.
There are some things that I guess you’d call sacred or sacrosanct and I will not mess with the powers that be or not to be simply to get a rise out of a coliseum of hungry sheep.
The Poet Klecko moved into the Gatsby Mansion and I wonder how the green light is treating him and if he’s yet been awakened in the middle of the night by Zelda’s crazy little ballerina mouth around his fast 'n' bulbous member.

I couldn’t find the keys. Skeleton or otherwise.
I also couldn’t figure out which direction was up and which direction was down and it may possibly be because you have turned me inside out and upside down with your plays on morality and constant rejection of the status-sucking-quo.
I watched him read a poem about Charlton Heston and it reminded me that in some sense or another we’re all Roman gladiators seeking infamy or at the very least a spirited pat on our Lazy Boy tushies.

I just pooped.
Thankfully today the itching in my anus does not seem as pronounced. I was starting to wonder if I had hemorrhoids or if the big C was finally knocking on my backdoor like an unwelcomed houseguest or overzealous and not so discreet lover.
I don’t believe that last line was stolen from anywhere although there’s always the possibility that I am dead wrong. My morning constitutional has set me free from the trials and tribulations of another bullet in the chamber day.

Charles Cicirella
9/6/15

Saturday, September 05, 2015

Standup Comedian

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-05T16_41_47-07_00

Today is not about making you laugh.
Today is not about pissing your pants.
Today is a day for reflection and readjusting our oftentimes perverted outlooks.

I could run through a bunch of killer one liners.
Make you feel like you were back in the Borscht Belt with the Jews and resort hotels.
Sometimes though it’s more important to take a good look at ourselves and not be so keen to go for the cheap applause or settle for the obvious punchline to another joke about your wife’s awful cooking.

Today we stand up and piss down on the standup comedian and all of their smugness and smirking anecdotes.
Today we lighten our loads by excusing nothing, including all of those passive aggressive wisecracks made at our expense over a thousand plus years.
Today we resist the stereotypes and stereotypical bows and arrows reigning down upon us like white ash from the ovens not so carefully hidden in the wide open expanse.

Charles Cicirella
9/5/15

Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Tarot Cards and Dissonance

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-01T20_33_51-07_00

I think about you.
I’m not going to lie.
I’m also not going to beg or pretend I’m something I’ve never even remotely been.

We trade punches with the great unknown.
We trade punches with the incorrigible and incongruent wind.
We lie down with the lions and haven’t a clue how truly precious the lambs are.

I am not a prize poet.
One time I won a prize for counting how many M&M’s there were in a glass jar.
When it comes to writing I can go twelve rounds and I seldom come off punch drunk.

I think about you all of the time.
I’m not going to lie and tell you that I don’t wish things weren’t somehow different.
This is the way things have played out though and all of the tarot cards and feelings of conflict in the world are not going to change that.

Charles Cicirella
9/1/15

“Just for points, not for blood.”


Listen to these words.
I mean really listen to them.
Consume them like you’ve not quite consumed anything before.

And when you’re done and your face is wiped and your hands are washed call me and we will compare notes and maybe even take a stroll down memory lane.
And when we’re through and our clothes are comingling on the floor like two ex-fighters passed their prime and passed their bedtimes I will remember you and I will shed tears of happiness and resistance.
And there is nothing like the first time or the second time or the third, fourth and fifth times you flirt with danger and come out the victor or at the very least unspoiled and unapologetic.

Listen to these words.
I mean really take the time to hear them and feel them throughout your entire organism.
Memories cannot sustain you nor will hope ever see you entirely through. Not when an unkindness of ravens is tapping, tapping at your chamber door.

Charles Cicirella
9/2/2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

Fresco

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-30T22_19_59-07_00

page is wet
words are the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the paper
artists cannot hear you they’re busy pushing the limits of their life to the breaking point
they’re busy pushing and pulling themselves in and out of the lion’s den

I know you’re feeling around for cracks and crevices
to you the blemishes scream imperfection while to me the imperfections prove this is not only a work of art, but a work of death defying sacrifices as the acrobats demonstrate there are many Christs and a crucified God does not automatically make a religion tenable or worthy of a Sunday matinee

I’m on a writing jag, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I have anything meaningful to say or that the words I’m spilling onto the soaking wet page don’t need a touch up or some better GPS coordinates to get them to that secret jumping off place
for me it’s not about control or completely extinguishing every wildfire that jumps the freeway because I know my passions will ultimately consume everything in their path
when I heard a friend recently say if he had been such a good friend then why didn’t he see the signs before Jimbo took his own life and all I could think was obviously you were not paying close enough attention because all of the signs were right there in plain view

page is wet with sweat and swearwords
and with the setting of the sun, the painting becomes an integral part of the landscape
I listen to my lion with every fiber of my being and sometimes I feel I almost get it right while other times I know I’ve failed miserably, but once you’re pushed and prodded from the womb there are no more do overs

I know you’re feeling around for a light switch in the blemishes of our maker’s face
on the seventh day the Lord rested and had someone fetch them a Frappuccino from the Starbucks on the corner
this is not only a work of dire consequences, but a work that defies logic and leaves you wishing for more than exists in your grandmother’s favorite candy dish
there are many saviors and a crucified Christ does not always mean you’ll get what you’ve earned once the stone is rolled away
the fresco will never completely dry nor will the grease stains on our hands ever be entirely pounded away

Charles Cicirella
8/26/15

Sunday, August 30, 2015

"cigarettes, gin, dog food." (For Billie)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-30T13_37_53-07_00

I miss you so fucking much.
I haven’t a clue if we would have gotten along or if Mister would have liked me, but I would have loved to have hung out with you both.
We could have played records and because I don’t drink I could have driven you around wherever you wanted to go. I would have even slept on the floor by the foot of your bed in case you needed something, anything in the middle of the night or day.

I miss you so fucking much.
Your voices speaks to me in every color of the rainbow.
Your voice takes me down to the river and washes all of my most contrived and convoluted sins away.

I miss you so fucking much.
I want to sit in a dark room with your voice pouring from the speaker as the vinyl record goes around and around and no one knows where it will land or if it will crash and burn.
I have never understood those who say your voice was failing in the later years.
How can they not hear the anguish and the longing and a life long experienced and the death existing in every syllable your tongue teased and delivered with such passion and ecstatic layers of both satin and silk?

I miss you so fucking much.
I want to pet Mister and if he and you would allow it kiss you on your unholy mouth.
I will pick up your groceries and bring them to you at night. I’ll knock three times on your door and wait until you answer.

Charles Cicirella
8/30/15

Friday, August 28, 2015

The square root of Klecko is more Klecko.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-28T17_50_43-07_00

I want to write a good poem.
Possibly even a great poem.
A happy poem and not a sad poem.

I want to write a poem about giving and getting head.
Not good head, but spectacular head.
The kind of head you get on a true pint of Guinness.

It has been brought to my attention my poetry is not getting off the ground which I find surprising because I am always careful to attach tiny wings to each and every poem I write. Perhaps the wings are too tiny or maybe I just need to write shorter and more succinct poetry.
It has also been mentioned that my style has a kind of syrupy despair which cements my character. Now the crazy thing about this particular insight is I believe it was meant as an actual compliment which I find rather troubling and in fact fills me with some of that same syrupy despair.
It has also been brought to my attention that “the universe is the same place at the end of your pronouncement as it was at the beginning” and that “great poets would not let that happen.” To this line of criticism I have to say when I sit down to write (and when I am fully inspired and all or most of my sparkplugs are sparking) I give up control and let the writing and the words and the creative zeitgeist take me where it will. And this is not meant as an excuse, but instead as a lantern to be shined on one’s dark night of the soul.

I want to give it all I got and leave those Confederate Generals from Big Sur in the unassailable dust.
I have no problem with criticism when it is constructive and actually even when it is destructive as long as it’s in good taste. When someone though is only trying to bring me down a notch or two because they’re incapable of dealing with their own failing will when then I have a problem and will take issue with the “critique” spewed at me like vomit or ego stew.
Now some people will read this and think I am talking about Klecko when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. In our lives we’re lucky, actually blessed if we find one possibly two people who unconditionally have our backs and are good on their word and are an actual human being and not just some facsimile of what is passed off as a human being in these days and nights of The Walking Dead. None of us are perfect and those of us who think that they are better do a damn better job of convincing me and the rest of the world before they offer their two cents which is not even worth a plumb nickel in these days of The Last of the Mohicans.

Charles Cicirella
8/28/15

I'm My Own Worst Enemy

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-28T17_21_03-07_00

I don’t own a pair of blue suede shoes but if I did I’d prefer you didn’t step on them.
We risk giving ourselves away when we hide in the shadows believing that is our only recourse when the bastards keep attempting to bring us down and all we want to do is create and not sweat so many of the small, insignificant details.
I was lost and then I was found and then I was lost again and it had nothing whatsoever to do with twelve steps or pretending I was anonymous and standing in front of a bunch of strangers admitting to things I’m not even entirely convinced I ever actually did.

I’m my own worst enemy like Bea Arthur was her own worst critic or Sammy Davis, Jr. was his own worst so and so when The Rat Pack made jokes at his expense and he just laughed it off as he carried their luggage and their nicotine-stained-egos around like it was nothing but another day at the plantation or Las Vegas casino.
I’m my own worst enemy and I know it and I still haven’t done anything to change it because what’s the point when one’s truth is completely relative and one person’s self-hatred is another person’s self-discovery.
I’m my own worst enemy when the shit is just about to hit the fan and instead of stepping out of the way of the whirling blades I get right in there and look forward to turning brown and smelling even worse than I already do.

We must learn to take the knocks to our ego and to our noggins before it’s too late and another legend goes under the knife for some undisclosed illness and another rolling stone packs it in and succumbs to the bitter cold under a bridge in some unnamed city.
I drank a hot toddy once in my life and it wasn’t in a ski lodge or some fortress with a bunch of SS soldiers. They say the Nazis were the salt of the Earth, and while what I say may not make any difference, I will tell you I think they had it all backwards as their evil deeds not only killed millions and millions of innocents, but also poisoned their country as a whole and has me questioning Germans to this very day.
We cannot redact the past but that does not mean we should forget about it either because once our memories fail us we are bound to repeat too many atrocities and that won’t be good for anyone including our worst enemies.

I have not been to Graceland yet, but I so look forward to going. Maybe the next time Bob Dylan is in Memphis my friend Dan and I can take a trip down south and also hit some Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives while we’re at it.
We risk imploding if we keep everything bottled up inside and trust no one with our most private thoughts and “Over the Rainbow” secretive lives.
I was standing out on the veranda the first time I spied you walk into a room. You did it with such an air of inscrutability that left me both shaking and endlessly curious about who you were and where you would be going next.

Charles Cicirella
8/27/15

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Percolating (For Joni Soule)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-27T11_56_30-07_00

Words haunt me like a reverie.
Words hunt me down like a Siberian tiger.
Words hurled at me like a handful of bad medicine.

Opened the can of ginger ale praying it would take care of my upset stomach.
Lowered my guard believing we would get on like the best of friends during the worst and most inopportune of times.
I have this bad habit of expecting people to deliver on the promises they haven’t even promised me. I’m funny that way like Judy Garland in her prime or Groucho Marx during his last appearance on The Dick Cavett Show.

Words bring out the very best and all the rest in me.
Words channel their wild-thing-energies as the mask slips from my Easter Island face.
Words give more of a shit than most people I know who are disingenuous at best and completely beyond reproach when their backs are nailed to the unaffected wall.

So tired of attempting share my work with other writers and never hearing anything back because their either too busy wrestling with their own angels or haven’t the good sense to allow outside voices inside their Wallace and Gromit heads.
Sick of fighting myself at every turn as I call everyone else out for the skeletons in their closets while refusing to open my own Pandora’s Box of transgressions and wrongdoings.
Ready and willing to go the distance once I’ve changed my shoes and made a real effort to destroy my bad attitudes once and for all.

Words like a trail of breadcrumbs lead me through a forest primeval of grim self- realizations.
Words exacting a toll that I find more and more perilous to wrap my creativity around as I sacrifice another precious memory to the great God Pan.
Words thrown out with both the baby and the bathwater as the next poem percolates and another cup of coffee grows taciturn.

Charles Cicirella
8/27/15

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Friend of Foe? (For James Michael Shepard)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-24T20_00_15-07_00

Blank page friend or foe?
Typewriter keys friend or foe?
Intellect friend or foe?

“I'm nothing but a stranger in this world.”
I watched him perform “Astral Weeks.”
I watched him turn heavy feelings into brave clouds.

Ego friend or foe?
Principles friend or foe?
Intellectual property friend or foe?

I’ll never forget those railroad tracks on Maynard Avenue.
How at first they kept me up all night.
Then after a couple of days I couldn’t fall asleep without the clicking and clacking.

Inspiration friend or foe?
Creativity friend or foe?
Desire friend or foe?

He lived like a defrocked monk or damaged soldier.
He picked through the wreckage with a diddley-bow-sonic-screwdriver.
He identified with the Passion Play because he had nailed himself to his own “American Face” long before Forced Exposure shined a lightbulb on his swollen appetite.

Time friend or foe?
Madness friend or foe?
Life and death a necessary evil or just another guiltless pleasure?

Charles Cicirella
8/22/15

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Absorption & Abstraction

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-25T12_33_05-07_00

Listening to “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” and not giving a shit.
Jerry is singing and Bob is blowing the harp. It’s cutting through me like an old murder ballad.
James Brown is now singing “That’s Life” and it makes me smile from ear to ear. I feel like the Joker minus courtside seats.

Talked on the phone earlier with a friend. He was trying to tell me his philosophy on all things coming from the light, but I wouldn’t listen because "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
I will not allow the hate to consume me, but I will also not pretend everything is hunky dory when nothing could be further from the truth.
If there is a God then there is a Satan, it’s just the way it is because if anything is ever going to work out it must first be polished and then polarized by all forces both great and small.

I pulled myself over earlier for drunk driving and the crazy thing is I haven’t even driven a car in over twenty five years. I refused the breathalyzer and am now sitting in jail waiting for someone to post my bail. It’s really not all that bad except that I’m not at all comfortable taking showers with so many other men who may or may not actually be guilty of something. I know I must just keep saying to myself when in Rome, do as the Romans do as I grimace and take it up the ass.
Listening to “It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World” now and thinking about when James Brown fled from the cops high on PCP. Of course none of what I just wrote went down the way it was reported and the real facts are Brown was the one being harassed by the cops. This being one more example of not being able to believe anything that you read in the newspaper or see on TV.

I’m alone, but not lonely. I’m scared, but not afraid. I’m a coward, but not yellow-bellied.
I tried reaching out to you, but you wouldn’t give me the time of day or for that matter the benefit of the doubt and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
My voice continues to cry in the wilderness because even though I was once baptized I’m not sure how well it took or if the Holy Ghost and I ever really saw eye to eye on any of the truly important issues like absorbing and dispelling your enemies’ hate and loving free of abstraction.

Charles Cicirella
8/25/15

Monday, August 24, 2015

Moon over Miami or “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-24T19_00_45-07_00

Sometimes I like to walk around the house squeezing one butt cheek and making popping sounds with my mouth.
Sometimes I like to think about sneaking up on you and surprising you by being someone completely different than the asshole you’re always expecting.
Sometimes I think about shaving my entire body and being the very first Jewish-Sicilian seal to crawl across this broken and defiled planet of ours.

We best go to Cuba right now before the spoils of capitalism reign down upon that small country like thunder and lightning from a very drunk and greedy God.
We best pull ourselves up by our bootstraps before the conservatives shower us with Judas kisses and betray all of our best intentions by being the assholes they always are.
We best not stop believing that the people can and will ready a militia and take down the sick fucks in power who think it’s completely acceptable to disenfranchise anyone who does not look like them or love like them or have the same color money as them.

Sometimes I like to parade around the house like some floozy from a bygone era when big hair was all the rage and being enraged did not land you in such hot water.
Sometimes I like to believe we’re all cut from the same dishcloth until I open my eyes to all of the pain and suffering too many are experiencing because too many people claim to be Christians, but act more like heathens.
Sometimes I think about moving to Denmark so I can once and for all let my guard down and be the freak I’ve always aspired to be.

We best get our ducks in a row because before you know it even Daffy and Donald are going to be sent to concentration camps. Their feathers singed from the gas as another Peking duck lands on the table of another unsuspecting American family.
We best do away with turning the other cheek and figure out some way to be stern without coming across like another schoolyard bully or dictator in waiting.
We best not give up our ghosts before we leave our own personal and indelible impressions upon this land of a thousand lakes and hills. I am Jack to your Jill or better yet I am Shirley to your Laverne and I have always understood you even when both of our chips were down and even a red hot poker would not completely awaken us from this hell on Earth.

Charles Cicirella
8/24/15

Klecko, Finley and the Infinite

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-23T15_29_06-07_00

Some people get it.
Others don’t.
This dynamic duo gets it in spades.

They bring the snap back to the chat.
The pork back to the pork pie hat.
The insanity back to the madness of creative otherness.

When they blew through Cleveland they offered an inflatable raft of good vibes to everyone in attendance.
There was nothing arid, dank or polluted to the delivering of their punchlines and poetry.
What if poets were just people and didn’t concern themselves with the cult of personality? That’s what I experienced as I watched, studied and drank in this Martin and Lewis comedy team and was reminded that the best poetry is always bare-knuckled and derives straight from the blood and guts of humankind.

Some people get it.
Others think they do and fail miserably as they slink along like a cheap knockoff of the Lizard King.
Nothing Klecko and Finley did was half baked and I believe that’s because their intentions were pure and their ingredients came directly from the creative zeitgeist and not from their peckers.

I feel very fortunate to have been present when they blew up Cleveland, Ohio.
There was nothing sinister, self-serving or politically motivated to the way they presented their fire and brimstone cantos to the rock and roll capital of the world.
What if poets were just people and when they stepped onto the stage they shared themselves with the audience and left the gimmicks and the hyperbole at home? That’s what I witnessed when this tent revival from St. Paul, Minnesota blessed us with their goodness and True Grit swagger.

They brought the sublime back to the ridiculous.
The mystery back to the Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards.
The regal glow back to the faded love of yesterday’s gone by.

Charles Cicirella
8/23/15

Speaking Truth to Power

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-21T12_52_35-07_00

(For U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders)

This is what revolutions are made of.
This is what dreams are spun from.
Think Willy Wonka with a predilection for politics and loosening the stranglehold around our blue collar necks.

The press doesn’t seem to know what to make of Bernie because he has no hidden agenda or ulterior motives.
The press continues to underestimate Bernie because God forbid an honest to God grass roots movement takes hold and hope wasn’t just another commodity sold to the masses like heroin and Big Macs.
We the people like to pretend we’re for the little guy when actually the little guy was put out to pasture around the time that political correctness took us all hostage and former President Bill Clinton proved once and for all that lying to the American people was just another day on Pennsylvania Avenue.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders shows us you don’t have to be a political animal to go into politics.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders shines a light on the simple truth that each and every one of us experiences each and every day that we’re not getting even a smidgen of the pie that is supposedly our constitutional right.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is making it crystal clear that doing the right thing is still possible even in these ultra-violent days and nights where corporations are people and the people have had enough.

This is how it begins.
A new day. A new deal. A new reckoning.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is not your daddy’s or your grandfather’s politician.

Charles Cicirella
8/21/15

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Dust, Oil and Gunpowder

 
I want to write about a tree.
Not any tree.
This is a particular tree.

I want to remove the gloves and say how I really feel.
Somehow capture when I was a kid on a Saturday afternoon and wanted to hang out with my dad, but my dad never seemed to have any time for me.
There’s dust, oil and gunpowder on these keys, but that is only because of all the killing these poems have a tendency of doing when the voices in my head get their way.

I want to write about a tree.
A tree whose war paint is not necessary because I know underneath it their inner child is naked and dancing in the sun.
This is a particular tree whose poetic branches exist in the past, present and future simultaneously.

Charles Cicirella
8/19/15

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Word Oxygen

(For Darin Bulai)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-18T12_46_07-07_00

I need to get it out.
Each word another breath.
Each poem another chess move away from death.

Or am I like one of the tragic figures I so covet heading toward my own demise?
If I crash and if I burn before I write one great sentence will that make it more likely I’ll end up anonymous or even worse another popular slogan like Let It Be or Let It Bleed?
So many great expectations and grand illusions around every bow in the blacktop. 

I’m more out of sorts these days than I am out of the rain.
I am a shut-in really waiting for my next big break or actually my first big break.
I remember when I was fourteen years old working at the local McDonald's wondering if this was all there was and thirty two years later I’m still wondering the same fucking thing.

I don’t think I’m better than anyone else.
Or more special or more deserving than anyone else.
I just know I have greatness inside of me and if I could just cut away all of the malaise and nausea there would be no stopping or slowing me down.

I need to set the record straight before all of the oxygen in the room is used up.
Each word another footstep.
Each poem another breath of life as I whittle away the exhaustion with sheer willpower and an inexhaustible belief that this cannot be all that there is.

Charles Cicirella
8/18/15

PB & J #2

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-18T12_28_29-07_00

I discovered Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and everything has changed.
I know you probably think I am making more out of this than I should, but I swear with Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter it’s not your grandfather’s PB & J or for that matter your father’s or even your second cousin’s twice removed.
We break into the smallest pieces and parts when we least expect it. I heard about Amazon’s horrific working conditions in their warehouses and I wasn’t surprised because slave labor still exists in America the Beautiful just like rampant racism still exists and sexism and a whole bunch of other isms like populism and extremism.

Oh who am I kidding? Populism really does not exist at least not in any relatable sense that could actually help the working poor become less disenfranchised.
Senator Bernie Sanders is called a socialist like it is some horrid affliction when in fact socialism makes more sense than this wretched state of affairs we call capitalism that capitalizes on nothing but making the über-rich richer and the poor and the middle class no longer a part of the conversation.
Trump is a wolf in wolves clothing. If you like your politicians an odd white-pink hue who go on and on about how they must be right because they’re really rich, then by all means vote for the Donald, but keep in mind you asked for it when the US ends up in receivership and we would do anything to get into Canada or Mexico as our own country breathes its last entitled, exceptional breath and dies a paupers’ death.

I discovered Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and all was right with the world for about forty five delicious seconds. And that goes double if you toast the bread and mix Smucker's Concord Grape Jelly and Smucker’s Strawberry Preserves together.
We work in cubicles like Pavlovian rats as our "instinct for research" is rewarded with minuscule scraps of this and that. We hunger for more and more access before giving up the ghost, leaving nothing but a carbon footprint and a set of fingerprints that will land you in prison quicker than you can say habeas corpus.
Slather on the Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and let’s not forget nor forgive Iggy for breaking down our strongest walls with Raw Power and endless bouts of self-destruction and self-corrosion. I’ve recently decided I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton because though I recognize that all politicians are for the most part completely full of shit I have an even bigger problem with someone who is supposedly a dyed in the wool political animal and yet clearly does not understand that you’ll never come across as genuine when you’re anything but genuine and believe you are smarter than everyone else in the room.

Charles Cicirella
8/17/15

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Just breathe

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-14T20_54_55-07_00

I’m not taking nearly enough deep breaths.
I need to get out of this place.
There is no movement that can move me away from this self-induced paralysis.

How do I go about changing the story?
Maybe I’m just a pulp poet and all of the meat is rotting on the open prairie.
Let’s together develop a conscience and stop focusing on the color of our skin.

There’s no fortune cookie big enough to foretell all this pervasive hypocrisy.
You said you were good with words. I didn’t believe you. I still don’t.
I think you’re a lizard who’s too cool and slippery for their own good and if you take one more selfie of that rusty, unholy smirk I swear I’ll do more than just unfriend you.

No one ever showed me how to stop and smell the roses. I know that’s no excuse, but that’s all I got as I go down dying, wishing these aspirin would take away more than just this headache.
Here’s my latest excuse. Memory issues are getting in the way of my remembering to say I love you. I also am beginning to have a problem with brown food like my grandmother did when the Alzheimer’s took her away and returned a kinder, more forgiving stranger.

Just breathe or at the very least learn how to fake it as a perfectly good society crumbles around your feet and you’re left with nothing not even your wits or your mom’s recipes.
Just breathe and never forget we’re out here watching and sizing up your every move as you play the role of rock star goddess messiah and we acquiesce around your swishing hips and twist and shout blue thundering eyes.
I bought my ticket so for now I won’t complain, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy or pleased with all of this privilege people keep yammering on and on about that I cannot seem to get a hold of or for that matter find amid all of this white noise.

Charles Cicirella
8/14/15

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Exaggerations in Time and Space

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-08-08T22_49_28-07_00

It’s time I loaded the pipe and reminded myself why I called you here in the first place.
It’s time I wrote about blood and gore and stopped scrawling my name in the clouds.
I am sick and tired of starting every sentence with me and never getting to the meat and potatoes of you and all you had to offer before you were aborted and your stem cells were plugged into the scientific research grid.

My spacesuit doesn’t fit and when you said we would be hanging out in a space capsule I didn’t think you actually meant an honest to God NASA space capsule.
I have to leave the capsule if I want to change my mind and I don’t believe we’re getting anywhere on these negotiations when seeing eye to eye is becoming less and less likely and all you seem to want to do is order room service and complain about your prime rib not being nearly rare enough.
It’s time for another Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and Smucker's® Strawberry Preserves sandwich. It’s time you called my bluff and I took you from behind like a Standard Schnauzer.

Okay I am going to now cleanse the doors of perception so things appear as they are, infinite with no congestion or sinus headache to get in the way.
I believe I was 2 years old the first time I met Buddha. He was sitting by the side of the road and when I stopped and offered him a ride he said he’d pass because he enjoyed waiting. When I asked what he was waiting for he didn’t answer nor did he have to.
The second time I met Buddha he was the one in the driver’s seat and when he sped by without even slowing down I just smiled and kept sitting under The Bodhi Tree because I knew my journey had just begun.

Charles Cicirella
8/8/15