“Well, my nerves are exploding and my body’s tense”
God is his shield as the blues rain down like Biblical prophecy.
First time I heard this record was on a cassette as I lay on a couch
on Maynard Ave. reading Philip K. Dick. As epiphanies go the songs
washed over me like dirges as the Shroud of Turin made its presence
known. Bob comes clean on these songs like he hasn’t before and on disc
one with the sheen gone these songs become even more confessional and
cantankerous. We’re witnessing the blue boy step from the wet, oily
painting to shake hands with death and demand his comeuppance. I’ve
never attempted to parse his words because what would be the bloody
point when transgressions are revealed and the sun shines upon him like
an unkempt prayer. This music is personal like a secret only revealed
once you’ve knelt down and acknowledged that your creator is neither
your best friend nor worst enemy.
Imagine the tragedy to befall us as another lifeblood-refrain tears us
to shreds. I’ve always heard “Cold Irons Bound” as a road song. A song
Lincoln would have played as he freed the slaves and dealt with his own
oppressive demons. The glass is shattered as Bob steps closer to the
edge and questions his impermanence. I believe the record is more life
affirming than people realize as Dylan wrestles with the muse that has
him in a chokehold. One’s legendary status only gets in the way when
you’re as hungry as a wolf and as treacherous as a quisling. Nothing
makes any sense as these fragments are rubbed into our wounds like fire
and brimstone.
Charles Cicirella
Saturday, January 28, 2023
I wrote this about the new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Fragments - Time Out of Mind Sessions 1996-1997 The Bootleg Series Vol. 17.
Sunday, August 21, 2022
Poem 2
Lying on the mattress, cowboys and injuns making bedlam on my soul
I cannot breathe this
polluted anxiety anymore
Charles Cicirella
8/21/2022
Sunday, August 07, 2022
Poem
The raging river sounds like a highway of tears repeat after me I will
not drown in my subconscious I will not drown in my subconscious
Charles Cicirella
Saturday, July 16, 2022
This is how I write.
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2022-07-16T03_52_57-07_00
It’s how I’ve always written.
I’m in and out the door in ten to fifteen minutes.
The imagery lies in wait like a big cat on the prowl.
Streams of consciousness freely flowing like jagged puzzle pieces down an opaque river.
Poetry is in my blood like chunky alphabet soup served at the shelter for the culturally ill-defined.
This is how I write as I hardly break a sweat churning out the pulp like a versifier high on noir and sodden bread.
Reasonable doubt goes out the window as a jury of my peers stare
blankly back at me from gothic mirrors leaving nothing, but the macabre
to the convulsed imagination.
I believe I fell in love because her soul was just as polluted as mine and when she did the tango it was for keeps.
This is how I blindside you by not once coming up for air until all the
inflatable poets are deflated and another beat writer rehearses for his
overdue retirement.
This game of to have and have not never impressed me so I left community college and refused to look back.
The stage like the gallows is the only place I’ve ever let it all hang
out as an audience of Titanic faces fights over the very last lifeboat.
Look up at the moon and tell me how little it has changed since first writing about it thirty nine years ago.
Charles Cicirella
7/12/2022
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
The Blood
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2022-07-12T09_11_38-07_00
His voice uncovers the great mystery. Darkness lifts as the stone is
pushed away and a new man walks free. Rob’s “A Voice from on High” is
the song the Israelites heard as they escaped Egypt because Rob carries a
great burden in his soul. All honest to God prophets must sacrifice
everything before a burning bush is revealed to them. Blood covers his
voice because it’s Blood carrying us through as we’re freed from bondage
and enter the Promise Land dressed in sackcloth and fresh tears.
Charles Cicirella
7/11/2022
Monday, July 04, 2022
Bursting Through Unconsciousness #3
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2022-07-04T13_18_42-07_00
No one’s paying attention
No one gives a shit
The cross the poet carries a cloak of invisibility in a hell-scape of attention seekers
Lying to oneself gets you five to ten on a long list of forget-me-nots
who never learned smelling the flowers is crucial to one’s survival
Quickly lost interest in porn so I started paying attention to the
plight of the worker ants and their day to day struggle to stay poor and
angry
Our productivity mustn’t be the key to someone else’s happiness because our souls are ours alone to protect and serve
No one’s lifting a finger to change a damn thing
The Supreme Court continues to supremely fuck us as the Wild West comes back into vogue like ethnic cleansing
We must burst through unconsciousness and discover ourselves at the end
of a long, dark tunnel where the light still favors a happy ending.
Charles Cicirella
6/23/2022
Bursting Through Unconsciousness #2
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2022-07-04T13_04_17-07_00
He’s gone
Another poet dead and buried
He shot pomp and circumstance in the head
He wasn’t full of shit and pathos like too many Cleveland poets
First time I saw him read I felt both unnerved and like I’d been hugged by the universe
His hunger never abated and his quest for knowledge was never satiated
He was the very first poet astronaut I’ve ever met. He introduced me to
the cosmos when he laid down his words like a red carpet of blood and
synapses
The news of his passing punched me in the gut and I swear I’ll never be the same again
One of the good ones who knew the jig was up and never judged the foxes too harshly for raiding the henhouse
He’s out of here
Another poet shot into space
He introduced each and every one of us to a kind heart and the beauty of an unabashed shooting star
I love and already terribly miss you Terry
Charles Cicirella
6/22/2022
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Life Preserver (For Emily Davis)
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2022-06-30T06_25_52-07_00
Ipps cry from the wilderness like a dog with no bone.
A prescient yelp from a Whitman soul that knows no boundaries or borderlines.
I was screaming while I wrote this and Emily nor Bo were either phased nor in the least little bit concerned for their safety.
Poetry isn’t for wimps no matter how you slice or dice it.
Recess was never much fun until I discovered Sue Leair and her skunks and number nine mythologies.
When staring into the void it’s best to have both eyes shut in case a vesper or pebble gets through your lowly defenses.
Emily sings louder than all the rest because her soul mustn’t be
contained as the hellhounds on her trail stop off at a hotel in San
Antonio where they hear tell of a journeyman laying down the real blues
medicine.
I can’t fight this feeling because I’m a child of the eighties where big hair and Porky’s got the best of many of us.
My prom had a Bon Jovi theme because we were still wanted dead or alive
as we wished for the horror of high school to be laid to rest.
This life preserver turns no one away because Emily believes that charity is not only a false Christian construct.
I wish I could get Lamont Thomas on drums as I screamed this poem to the high Heavens.
More inflatable consonants and vociferous vowels to lead us past the
flames and into a paradise of pomegranates and purring Siamese cats.
Ipps inflate nothing because they understand how crucial it is to be counted in a forest of starving roadblocks and frozen impediments.
One more false prophet flaking out because their bourbon wasn’t top
shelf as Emily stands tall by never turning her back on anyone.
Bo and Emily are in my heart because I’ve had enough of false equivalents.
Charles Cicirella
6/30/2022