Let’s lay down with our lions and do our very best to forgive the sheep.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-12-24T21_36_27-08_00

No one dreams of anything when they’re electric except why they’re not Elton John

I’ve always stood against any and all levels of hatred, especially the type of hatred dripping with gasoline and thirsty for a lit match

Let’s climb out of our skins and focus instead on what comes after we’re defunct and circling the cosmic drain

I know you don’t believe you’re a lion, but I’m telling you that you are

Ignore all the disingenuous soothsayers who like most beat poets will never beat the rap of being a typist instead of a writer

That’s of course if you take Tru’s side and if you do well that’s your unanswered prayer to wrestle with until another virgin writer is born and spills their cold blood

I’m only a poet when I’m writing, the rest of the time I’m just Charlie, something I thought Joe Cohen of all people would understand

Let’s impregnate our doppelgangers with less obnoxious versions of ourselves

We’re gonna have to start effecting change through any blunt means possible if we have any hope of a revolution.

Words not guns always prove the most effective weapons in our cannon.

Keep this in mind the next time you’re stringing together popcorn and taking down one Walmart customer after another

“Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home”

Charles Cicirella

12/24/19

Condensation

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-12-13T12_43_18-08_00

Before we disappear

Let’s reassess our options

We’re red hot like Grand Theft Auto

These poems are short

Because I have little to say

And I’m hungry for magic

There’s a pizza in the oven

Cheese fell off and is burning

I hope the fire alarm stays mute

Condensation is our biggest enemy

Because it realizes our greatest fear

Disappearing before we’ve had our say

Let’s watch an Orson Welles film festival

And get lost in takeout Chinese

TCM is oftentimes the most lethal aphrodisiac

Before I disappear

I must confess

I’ve always been biased when it comes to you

Charles Cicirella

12/10/19

Controlling Everything Around You While Ultimately Giving Up Control (For Terry P.)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-11-13T20_13_25-08_00

Standing the test of time is for pussies

I’m sorry for uttering the P-word

There’s no excuse for that under any circumstances

I smell oatmeal

Steel-cut and priming to be our savior

I’ve always favored Aunt Jemima over Uncle Ben, call me a feminist

I move from one poem to the next like a marauder whose best marauding days are behind them

Expected shelf-life is for wimps

I’m sorry for uttering the W-word

It’s inexcusable in these torrid times of weaponized hatred

I turned my head and saw you, eyes closed, deep in the poetry-jazz wafting around us like cherubs in assless chaps puffing on refer cigarettes

You’re so cool I cannot help but think of the Fonz before he jumped that shark and started to push reverse mortgages on an unsuspecting public 

Why can’t we as a species be happy with what we got and not be so greedy and full of black ink?

Let’s duck out back like two guys who were smart enough not to tangle themselves up in some spiritless movement

I like hearing you read and enjoy reading when you’re in attendance because I know that at least one person is listening with their chakras wide open

We were riding on a tandem bicycle, can’t recall who was in front and who was doing all of the work in the back, but the one thing I do remember is how easy you are to talk to no matter the mountains standing tall before us or the open expanse we float through like weightless chimpanzees

Charles Cicirella

11/12/19

Medicated

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-08-08T14_42_50-07_00

His words are the gunpowder that wakes and bakes me up and Adam

The media is trying to convince us this is now our world and we best get used to it

I refuse to accept this as true because at some point we’ll have to do some sensible gun legislation otherwise people will just stop going outside to the soft target that is America

I’m not medicated yet, but when I woke up today to see it was 4:20 I did reach for my pipe and wished I had a crushed red velvet smoking jacket like Hef

Some stuff is just outrageously stupid like the fact assault rifles are still being sold because people shooting at stationary targets is a God damn given right and everyone who has so far died at the hands or mouth of the almighty dollar are all just collateral damage

Politicians can go fuck themselves and that goes thrice for the neo-liberals who sold us down the river and made the slogan ‘Made in America’ a complete and utter misnomer

Stand tall or don’t stand at all that’s what I say and I only stand 5' 2" tall, but have always believed like Buford Pusser that if you’re not walking tall than you aren’t walking at all

Let’s brace for impact and while we’re at it let’s stop pretending all of this carnage is any real surprise as we take our thumbs off the scale that is America the Beautiful and her bloodied past

His words shoot me out of a cannon that is spoken word at its most defiant and death defying because words can get us all the way to the summit if we only believe in ourselves and put down our guns.

Charles Cicirella

8/8/19

Desire & Delirium (For Julie Ursem Marchland)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-08-05T19_04_14-07_00

Naked

Water beading as you exit the bath

Every curve a symphony of sound and endless rapture

Birthday suit

Everyday a new way to process everything

The chains broken when our synapses snap crackle and pop

Poetry my savior since I pulled out the nails and screamed at my creator

Crucifixion is nothing compared to self-preservation and The Grand Inquisitor that exists within us all

My intellect as sharp as a stone skipping across the water and I’d be as mad as a hatter if I didn’t confess the love I feel for you

I would start at the beginning, but it’s the middle where all the cream filling lies in wait

You know what it means to be both a woman and a child as I catch glimpses of the Big Bang in your equine eyes

It started with a murmur and before we knew it the Chosen People felt anguish beyond the scope of their routine suffering

I could care less about the emperor’s new clothes

It’s only you I wish to spy nude beneath a sky of sliced red ribbons and blue ribbons handed out only to the underachievers

My eyes paint you in a field of daisies as we run through the brushstrokes of yellow and green and pretend we haven’t a care in this world

Charles Cicirella

8/3/19

Marcie (For Julie Ursem Marchland)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2019-08-05T18_54_14-07_00

Had a crush on you for the longest time

It’s true like ice-cream melts beneath the hot sun

It’s true like wiener dogs looking for their bun

Standing the test of time means nothing if you’re unwilling to look Chronos in the eye and demand he stops putting his thumb on the scale

I pull these words out of me like Hepburn and Bogart burned off the leeches in The African Queen

You’re a forties movie heroine like Veronica Lake

Your femme fatale roles and peek-a-boo hairstyle leaves us all desiring more as you eat all of the popcorn and finish the last craft beer

I’ve often wondered what would happen if we got lost long enough, would you scooch on over and share your kerosene longings with me

Had a crush on you since before Burton had his last drink or Virginia Wolf consumed Little Red Riding Hood simply because she could

The poems I write for you are different perhaps because they’re more literal and fit so succinctly inside your card catalog

Was that last line a euphemism for something else, maybe, but your mind is never in the gutter which is such a breath of fresh air in these dangerously toxic times of man bites dog and dog swallows man whole

I have a friend her name is Beth and she’s doing her very best to stand up for who she is after so many years of just going along so she wasn’t disliked

Beth has discovered when trying to be the best you that so many supposedly close friends will turn their backs because you no longer fit their frame of reference

I mention Beth because I think you could be good friends because you are both as sweet as can be and neither one of you wishes harm on anyone.

Charles Cicirella

8/3/19