Monday, November 16, 2015

I'm Listening

 
I’m pretty sure I’ve written this poem before.
In fact I think I have written it several times, in different guises with lots of Vaseline around the blowhole. And let’s not forget the candy you used to entice her out of a dead marriage.
Some poets deserve to die many deaths before they’re finally put to bed with milk, cookies and a dog eared copy of War and Peace lying next to them like an inflatable sex doll or another excuse to torture themselves before falling asleep like an exhausted child.  

I’m listening with all of my faculties’ razor sharp and ready to rip into this gaunt, redolent feast like a poet who knows they’re about to expire so they best get as much paint out of the tube as they can before the buzzer goes off and Tom Wilson annoys you for simply doing his job.
I’m listening because you leave me no other choice as the jackals turn into sidemen right before your weathered Moby Dick eyes and even Gregory Peck wouldn’t be able to save you from this destiny you so doggedly pursued like Jack the Ripper on a tear.
You’re tired, I’m tired, I bet even those emptying the ashtrays are tired but you still have a sheaf of papers that must be explored and delivered into a microphone that has no idea what’s to come and how music and history and personal relationships and the garment district we’ll never be quite the same again.

I’m writing to you with no hope of these words actually reaching you because the times most certainly have changed and the guards at the gate are even keener on keeping the unwashed masses from your door.
Please understand I have no hidden agenda nor are my motives very sharp. I just find myself connecting with everything you’re laying down and it makes me wish we could go see a movie or hang out in a bookstore or just eat some pie in a non-descript diner somewhere in America or maybe we could hang out in your castle watching The Third Man. I bet your take on Harry Lime, Orson Welles and Graham Greene would shiver my timbers and leave me in a mess on the stone cold floor as you giggled just like you did in ’65 when the world was laid out before you like cinéma vérité and you made it your own because what other choice did you have?
I’m pretty sure I’ve written these words before, but that’s alright because you get the point and understand that which is pointless is oftentimes the nightingale’s code as the world crumbles around your designer Italian boots and you make the most out of the words and the melodies and the fire and ice breaking down your walls and leaving you completely spent like a ghost whose ticking time bomb intellect refuses to back down or find someone less deserving to haunt.

Charles Cicirella
11/11/15

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