Jailbreak #999

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-30T12_13_13-07_00

This poem was trying to force itself inside of me.

It was the middle of the night. I was watching myself sleep and then all of a sudden I felt the consonants and vowels attempting to conquer me like some Trojan horse or Norse Invader.

There’s no way to prepare yourself for such an onslaught and before I knew it the gameshow Wheel of Fortune was having its way in my large intestine. Vanna just kept turning the letters like she did in the old days. Pat Sajak was his same goofy self.

She lived over Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant. I’ll never forget how incredible their chiles rellenos were before they got in trouble for tax evasion and child labor.

When I finally got to feast my eyes on her Midwestern breasts all I could think was it was well worth the wait. That is until she told me she had herpes and we had to stop.

I never seem to catch a break and perhaps I bring that on myself, but either way masturbation only gets you so far before you need contact with another human being.

This same poem later tried to turn the tables and say I took advantage of it which seemed rather unlikely seeing how my mouth was duct taped shut and my arms were pinned to my sides like wooden wings afraid to take flight.

This poem just another schoolyard bully as I now question why I created it; as I’m sure God often questions why he created the Christians, or Muslims or even the Jews when he’s had a truly awful day and kicking the can down Main Street is doing no one much good.

This poem needs a fourth verse, but I’m at a loss where it should be heading and I’m thinking Lincoln County Road is as good a place as any.

I’d ask you where we’re headin’, but what’s the point when I’ve recently discovered I cannot trust you and going it completely alone is the only way I may actually be able to find shelter from the storm.

The first time I ever set eyes on you it was amid a tsunami of words and unkempt layers of freshly laundered money. You had cocaine on your nipples and a spring in your step that kept me coming back for more. I’ll never forget when you finally had had enough and stood up to your oppressors. I wish I could learn from your example, but sadly I’m just another Hebrew poet wearing the skin of a cowardly lion.

Charles Cicirella

9/30/15

Roll Away the Stone

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-27T01_43_20-07_00

I cannot try any longer.

The stone is too heavy.

And Lazarus refuses to help.

We are stardust.

In the blink of an eye we are here.

In the blink of an eye we are gone.

I’m a poet.

Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Doubting Thomas is my patron saint. I learned that when we were off the record.

The story is written in red ink.

The blood on our hands is just more yellow journalism.

And you cannot raise a politician whose heart is dead.

He is the Alpha.

And the Omega.

The First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Don’t worry yourself over the particulars.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

If you lose your soul that’s it you cannot get it back no matter how much you pay it forward.

I was a child of God.

I am still very much a child of God.

I don’t have to prove myself to you or to anyone.

Sisyphus proves how fatalistic a perpetual motion outlook can be.

Job got his proof and then some, but he still wasn’t convinced of much of anything.

Get down on your knees and pray and maybe, just maybe you’ll be blessed and none of your actual prayers will be answered.

Charles Cicirella

9/26/15

Daisy Chain Repertoire

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-20T22_50_15-07_00

Going to wear these words around my neck like an albatross.

Going to wear these words around my neck like “Tiny Bubbles” that even Don Ho could not get off the ground.

We suit up for battle even when there are no enemies in sight and the whites of their eyes are just another bedazzled memory like semi-precious gemstones or The Rolling Stones in their actual prime.

I’m not going to drown in a swimming pool or choke on my own vomit to attain some mythical status. I’m trying to come to terms with being just another talented unknown. It’s better than knowing virtually everything about networking, but not a single solitary thing about inspiration and the slings and arrows going along with being creatively driven and creatively spent.

These words are lodestones placed on the front of the refrigerator like a kid’s drawings because pride is a tricky thing when having to do with your offspring and believing in the next generation of honest to God human beings and not just another text message or Smartphone app.

I’ve become all too accustomed to shooting my semen like unholy ghosts into the folds of this or that security blanket and pretending I don’t need to cum and pretending that it’s just another fossilized memory I must distance myself from ASAP.

I’ve always responded to how you don’t pull any punches especially when it comes to your mind over matter politics and how you loved me when it was convenient and how you walked away when I’d become just more baggage. I never pretended to be anything but who I am and I refuse to apologize for all of the madness you were subjected to when we removed our masks and watched game shows all day long in nothing but our Earl Scheib birthday suits.

I have no clue what I’m driving at, but trust me when we arrive you’ll be the first to know why we’ve come so far and how I plan to pay you back for all of your paltry patience and sexual dalliances.

I’m not here to impress you. These days I feel lucky if I can just get up from the floor after I’ve slept for 16 to 18 hours like a koala bear. I stopped making excuses for myself about ten or twelve years back. I decided it was a waste of both my time and energy trying to explain who I am or want to be when I grow up and women stop asking if I need a booster seat when we sit down for dinner.

These words are not elastic nor are they much of a bungee cord so I wouldn’t suggest jumping off of a cliff with only these sentences to keep you from plunging to the ground. We must learn to respect the people who taught us to read and think for ourselves and that goes double for our kindergarten teachers. Her name was Mrs. Jones and she had a large red birthmark on her face. I felt safe when I was around her and I also will never forget all of the doors she opened up in my mind.

Charles Cicirella
9/20/15

Get Out of the Bag I’m in (For Fred & Howard)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-20T22_31_18-07_00

Dust mites attack from all directions.
Blueprints no longer doing the trick.
I’m at a loss for words.
I’m at a loss for master strokes.

Being a visionary is not as easy or as effortless as it may appear to those who have never had an original thought.
To raise the roof you must first have burned down plenty of barns. And if you’re not barnstorming then what’s even the point of your existence?
Word gymnastics are blasé and only work in slam competitions. If you strive to work and write in the trenches and not simply type yourself out of another personal crisis then you must first learn to sacrifice like Christ and his 13 Apostles did. Yes I am including Mary Magdalene in that rather audacious and somewhat labor intensive comparison.
Let’s make something out of nothing. Once you’ve successfully done that don’t forget to make it your own with your sweat and blood poured into the grooves of your next number one record.

Uncloud your head.
Your soul must be fed.
Uncloud your heart.
Your psyche mustn’t go dark.

I’m as liberal as they come until someone argues with me about taking away their guns.
I may just have to point my typewriter at their open mouths and shoot some poison darts down their slip, slide and away gullets.
We trespass on perfect strangers without even giving it a second thought. This social networking is for the angry birds. I’m dumbfounded by your inability to recognize what I’m capable of.
Is it vanity or mere stupidity getting in the way of your understanding how far we could go if you’d only allow me in and stop pretending your kingdom is the only game in town?

I remember the first time I was pigeonholed and how it felt to have my feathers plucked out one by one from my pink, tender skin.
I didn’t like it one bit when you reminded me this was all my fault on account of not being able to hold my tongue and for striking back against my oppressors without a practical stratagem.
I was hiding out trying to regain focus when everything became blurred and I couldn’t remember my own name or who the President of the United States was.
I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned as I grow my fingernails and toenails as long as the Mississippi River and try to unburden myself from the deceitfulness of my flowing subconscious.

Charles Cicirella
9/12/15

Another poem no one will read.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-20T01_11_04-07_00

Making a habit of writing into a vacuum.
There is a black hole and I’ve made it an ally by feeding it one poem after another.
I couldn’t tell you what quantum mechanics is. I also couldn’t tell you how I became an artist, but I know it just feels right and I wish Albert Einstein had been my friend.

Let’s not mince words. Some people have real talent while others have no business whatsoever walking onto a stage and attempting to make a rabbit disappear or sawing their pretty assistant in half.
I would say we need to become more comfortable calling a spade a spade, but I know I’d be called a racist because political correctness has completely quashed common sense as the Christian Right pulls rank on each and every one of us.
Someone needs to tell those bigots that Christ was born, died and rose again a Jew and that’s always the way the martyr crumbles when you dip him or her into a glass of white milk.

Another poem I will post onto FB because I like to torture myself. The writing keeps me grounded, but when it comes to hustling I haven’t a clue what that even means.
Scenes of Midnight Cowboy run through my head as I cross one more crowded intersection and learn to tolerate Jon Voight in Ray Donovan.
I need to lift myself out of the Cleveland poetry scene because it has become all too clear I am only doing myself more harm by running over and over again into the same old brick wall. I believe in my talent, but getting others to believe in it is easier said than done and I am starting to wonder if I am really fooling anyone as my intellect breeds tiny monsters and my eyes tear up from the very real loss of God.
I know I’m naïve and I know I’m too cynical for my own good, but taking all of these sleeping pills just sounds like such a bad idea and the thought of squirreling away some arsenic like my uncle did also makes no viable sense to me. When he finally blew his brains out with his father’s pistol near the RTA Rapid Transit tracks we had to call the city who arrived in Hazmat suits and gave everyone weird sideways glances like we were plotting the next 911.

Let’s not mince words. Let’s also not pretend we’re ever going to try again. Starting over is especially excruciating when your hands are tied behind someone else’s back and Cliff Huxtable turns out to be a serial rapist.
There is nothing more to do and no one left to rely upon. It’s not over until the fat lady bowls a perfect game and The Dude forgives us for all our transgressions by going completely silent and turning invisible in front of our Winnebago eyes.
Albert Einstein called me collect about thirty minutes ago. I knew it was him because of his thick German accent and the way he made everything sound so smart including the compliments he paid me as I began to blush and hung up on him by accident. Here’s another offering from my unsolicited brain. You don’t have to pay it any mind just please don’t ignore it so audaciously because these days I don’t feel like I have a friend in the world and even a complete stranger might actually come in handy when the going gets tough and the tough get brain cancer.

Charles Cicirella
9/20/15

Rubbing excrement all over my body like a crazed prophet.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-18T18_46_28-07_00

I’ve never written poetry. Not really.
The words I write are not mere words.
There is prophecy in what I’m going after and if I could explain that better I would, but there’s no time left.

The first poem I ever wrote was about the moon. I’ve said that already in several poems.
Now I must go passed the moon and do my best to enter other spaces so when I reenter Earth’s atmosphere I’m not only a better man, but a better communicator.
Planetary travel versus the internal trappings of one’s universal mind and body electric. Pushing beyond the outer limits and accepting the twilight of one’s soul as key if we’re ever going to file down the totality of our sins.

I’ve never written poetry. No not really.
When I press down the keys or hold a pen or pencil in my hand I am holding onto the past, doing my best to move through the present and embarking upon a future written in super flues and pandemics.
Florence Nightingale was Jesus Christ and if you don’t understand that then there is very little that you will ever truly comprehend. There is no more messing about you’re either in or you’re out and if you are not a believer then you’re already dead.

Cries of silence permeating every molecule of our chemical makeup.
Your soulmate a petri dish. Now the question is are we willing and able to look through the microscope to see the truth laid out before us like a reading of tarot cards? The tarot readers are scientists and your best bet is to stop believing so doggedly in any God.
I stood in the town square and rubbed excrement all over my body. I didn’t do it to prove a point. In fact I’ve never felt the need to prove anything to anyone and that includes this very second, when we’re on the precipice of monumental calamities and the crushing deathblow of humankind being forced to its knees.

Charles Cicirella
9/2/15

Untitled

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-10T16_28_26-07_00

Lit the smokeless bowl and watched the Waning Crescent Moon.
Ate some French toast before that so I am feeling pretty full and stoned.
Watching episode six of 12 Monkeys. A friend recommended the show to me and when I discovered Emily Hampshire was in it I was immediately hooked.

These black moths keep flying around. Now they’re attacking my nose and open mouth. There’s a part of me that is not sure they’re real, but another larger chunk of my brain knows that they do in fact exist.
Keep clapping my hands to try and kill them, but even when it appears I’ve eliminated one another soon appears or is it the same one?
Now I have to pee which is really annoying because only dribs and drabs are coming down the pike. I’m drinking lots of water so not really sure what the problem is.

The bowl didn’t work and I think I’m now just smoking paper.
The moon though was sure pretty to look at and I needed to get back into writing mode.
I’m in a racecar going 200 MPH. The car in front of me explodes into flames and for a split second I no longer exist and even the period at the end of this sentence will not be able to contain my unalleviated energies.

Charles Cicirella
9/6/15

Red Leaves

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-10T13_15_22-07_00

“It’s time to go.”
Let’s not pretend we know any better.
Let’s not pretend.

We talked on the phone.
I went on and on about sacrifice.
Her breathing never fails to challenge and reawaken me.

The last time we met there was whiskey on your breath.
I know you were not an alcoholic and even if you were who gives a shit.
I remember every single one of our recording sessions. How you’d lumber around the room like a giant sequoia in need of sunlight and more time.

“It’s time to go.”
Or it’s time to stay.
It’s our choice and whatever we choose to do or not do won’t make any actual difference when the weights and measures finally erase us for good.

I want to spend an eternity with you in afterschool detention.
I want to hang out with Mr. Soble in some undisclosed location even though I know he was not as cool and in control as he may have once seemed to my teenage addled brain.
In fact I believe he was bordering on disintegrating at virtually any moment and that is why I paid attention in his class and allowed myself to be taught by someone who was clearly not the brightest bulb in the box.

When I call and you answer it’s like a conjugal visit stripped free and clear of sex, but chocked full of red glitter and clandestine absorption.
Neither one of us has a smartphone which I actually think makes us that much cooler in the drawn-out and rather clumsy order of things.
I was screaming like a baby bird in need of nourishment when you stuck your fingers down my throat and fed me whatever was within reach. A few rusty nails, a worm or two and your unremitting sickly sweet reassurances that neither one of us would die today even though we’d wish we had.

Charles Cicirella
9/10/15

Word-Ghosts in the Ether

 http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-09T12_31_46-07_00

The words are here.
Right here.
Then they’re gone.
Just like that.

I could feel them
Taste them.
See them and reflect upon them in my mind’s eye.
Now they won’t even look at me and refuse to respond to the simplest of requests.

You wouldn’t understand.
You are not a wordsmith.
Just another hired gun.
Just another word-whore whose only purpose is to win blue ribbons like some prized cow at the county fair.

I thought we were the same.
I thought we were in it to do the work and make an honest to God lasting impression.
I never quite understood that not everyone is inspired and that too many people are just in it to polish the chrome of their absurd egos.
I had a friend who was an action-painting-super-hero who did his art like he only had six months to live. He got it as he bled for his chamber-music-requiems and for all of the braveclouds that will never have their very own silver lining because of budget cuts and because the beautiful people have sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.

The words are somewhere over there.
I tried to pick through the wreckage, but became stuck in the thickets and the awkward silences.
Now I’m gone.
Just like that I’m gone and there are no more songs. And everything is in the rearview like the distant memories of your first junior high dance and first real kiss. 

Charles Cicirella
9/1/15