Sunday, September 14, 2014

"The Almighty Has Terrified Me"

I will suspend disbelief for a little while and believe this chocolate bar is God.
My father lives in Florida, but sometimes you have to take what you get and accept handouts are not always handed out for free.
I wish that this chocolate bar had almonds, but beggars cannot be choosers, especially when it has to do with serotonin levels and adjusting your expectations to maximum resplendency.

The Almighty has terrified me, but that’s alright because I’ve always known being one of the 144,000 chosen would not be a walk in the park, especially when competition is so stiff and everyone seems to have forgotten Jesus Christ was born, died and raised again a Jew.
Genocide is such an overplayed hand, and the fear mongers and the brown shirts best stop pushing such a hateful and ignorant agenda because sooner or later the people will finally have had enough and will rise up against their oppressors, leaving no stone or cheek unturned.
The Almighty has terrified me into believing more in myself because the calm before the storm has been placed into receivership, and no ark is going to be large enough to save everyone and that includes all of the animals and coveted humans this time around.
  
I will suspend disbelief for the time being and believe this chocolate bar is calling me.
My real father is up in Heaven even though I am finding that increasingly more difficult to believe. I am not programmed to look forward to much of anything, not even having a real life beyond this splendid isolation.
I wish I was going to more than just one Bob Dylan concert this tour. He is the only thing I’ve found that more than exceeds my expectations, but beggars cannot be choosers, especially when heading for another joint before the distance swallows you whole and spits you out in little, insignificant pieces and parts.

Charles Cicirella
9/8/14

My Self-Esteem Is In The Shitter

Just realized I have not a single person in my life to tell me they love me.
Wonder if I’ll ever be able to lift myself from this morass I’ve created.
My self-esteem is in the shitter, and it’s no surprise when there is no one there to talk to and I spend all of my time completely isolated from another human being.

My self-esteem has called it quits as I lie here on this killing floor wondering how things have gotten so out of control and why the part I always seem to play is either of the loner or lone gunman.
I have assassinated my own good will by going up into the clock tower and focusing only on my targets, never once just enjoying the view.
I’m in the bathroom of my mind, and there’s not enough toilet paper to wipe away how poorly I’m feeling.

We had Chinese food last night, but someone stole my fortune cookie.
Wondering how long I’ll be able to go on like this before the bubble bursts or worse I discover myself trapped inside of the bubble like John Travolta in that awful made-for-TV movie.
My self-esteem is in the shitter as I consider changing my name to Lazarus and praying for a savior to raise me from the dead.

Charles Cicirella
9/11/14

Friday, September 12, 2014

Abe Lincoln

Go ahead and strip me down to my bare essentials.
When it’s come to slavery, I’ve always been a willing participant as long as when my emancipation arrives, I’m given a good book to read and a seat by the window.
I’m tired of all your speechifying because when push comes to shove, your pragmatism hardly shoves enough.

Abraham Lincoln was a really good leader. At least that’s what history tells us as we put down the current issue of Time and allow the past to speak to us through facts, not non-fiction.
I don’t need a litmus test to know I’m a liberal and proud to be one just like I don’t need a weatherman to show me how intolerant too many people are when it comes to our very first black President of the United States.
Right there in the title is the word united, and yet it’s depressing how many people have forgotten what this word means or that it ever existed in the first place.

Go ahead and lay me bare in front of all my most fervent of detractors because I’ve never had anything to hide and believe the truth will set every one of us free once we can agree upon one truth indivisible for all.
You cannot write a document and say all men are created equal when the only men you actually meant were rich white men.
Looks like we’re being goaded to again go to war because the neocons are never happy unless we’re occupying someone. I understand some boogeymen are very real and must be dealt with. What I am having a difficult time understanding is why it is always America that must take the fight to these assholes.

Charles Cicirella
9/10/14


Monday, September 08, 2014

Ruminations

Punched in the gut again by events I cannot control.
It’s the way of the world when nothing seems to be going your way.
Listen to the voice on the radio and know soon you’ll be submerged beneath the waves.

Cogitations like partially digested food. Like ponderings of transient thoughts going nowhere.
I was attracted to her distress and how she spent hours in the bathroom picking at her skin.
I was attracted to how she never appeared to wrinkle even when a stitch in time was bearing down on her and she was lost in the ruminations of her own restless legs syndrome.

Bukowski was a pugilist as much as he was a poet and a loner and a madman.
I wish I could have driven around Hollywood with him in that BMW he bought with movie money.
I’ll never forget watching a documentary about him and how disgusted I was when watching him become more and more enraged as he kicked his wife off of the couch.

Punched in the gut by hunger pangs and the inane banality of it all.
It’s the way of the world especially when you’re as dull as paste and even the paste is more interesting.
Listen to the voices in your head just long enough to know they’re full of shit and that soon you’ll be ruminating on another blue Sunday.

Charles Cicirella
9/6/14

Third Eye Revolution Charles Cicirella - poetry and voice 9/5/14

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152744799527774&l=3246317829082326076

Charles Cicirella reading at the open mic. at Writing Knights - Monday, August 25, 2014, Hosted by Azriel Johnson. - at Cultured Coffee Co. Canton, OH.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152744741172774&l=1224166601110567021


Friday, September 05, 2014

My review of Juliet Cook's NEW poetry chapbook - RED DEMOLITION -



Glitter Witch Repellant

Crack open this plethora of poems before they spoil. Before these rancid meat popsicles mutate into something even less salvageable and more worthy of contempt. You don’t read Juliet’s poems; no instead you shoot them into your temporal lobe and pray you don’t hemorrhage or worse yet survive this bloodletting. These poems speak to you with their twisted, sworn to secrecy mouths and soulless pinprick eyes. There is so much being dredged up that letting yourself off the hook is no longer an option as you turn another swollen page and die a little more inside. Snap open this murder of poems before you’re all red and swollen like a pimple or prick ready to pop or crackle like sugary cereal with an axe to grind. If you’ve ever wondered what collateral damage looks like up close and personal go and get yourself a copy of Red Demolition and remember you were warned. And remember when you were burned at the stake.

Charles Cicirella
9/5/14

published by Shirt Pocket Press and available for a mere six bucks here -  

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Third Eye Desolation

(For Dan Klute)

There's blood in the streets; it's up to my ankles.
Blood in the streets; it's up to my knee.
And I do not care what anyone says because The Doors are not just some band you listen to during your adolescence. In fact I still listen to them because they speak the truth through the blues, reds, and sonic booms.

I am waiting for the phone to ring.
I am awaiting another muse, another queen of the highway, another third, fourth, or fifth second coming to arrive and move these chess pieces around the board.
I had money, yeah, and I had none, but I was never so broke that I couldn’t buy a ticket to your show.

We’re led to believe good things come to those who wait, and if you believe that, I have a timeshare to sell you that is on the dark side of the moon.
Third eye desolation is a plague, and if you don’t get what I’m saying, don’t sweat it because you’ll soon be dead or filthy rich and living on an island with someone who you love to despise.
The cars hiss by my window like the waves down on the beach. We’re all being led to slaughter with every single Facebook message we post and smartphone app we download.

Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness.
Blood in the streets is up to my thigh.
And I do not care what anyone says because James Douglas Morrison was an American poet who slithered through the LA streets like a lizard in need of alcohol and a shaman who would listen to his moonlight driven prayers for a sacred kind of sweet desolation.

Charles Cicirella
9/3/14

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

No More Laughter

(For Robin Williams)

He hung himself.
Sat in a chair with a pocket knife and made some superficial cuts to the inside of his left wrist.

Was he out of punchlines?
While making so many others happy, on the inside was he screaming for help?

In the Dairy Queen picture he looked so gaunt and frail.
Were all the many voices in his head overcrowding and overwhelming any hope for inner peace?

Improvising on stage without a net is hard enough.
Improvising in life without a net is a whole other tin cylinder of napalm.

He stood up there on stage conducting a symphony of jokes with his unstoppable energy.
He stood in front of us showing just how beautiful and human a court jester can be.

I have a feeling he was tired of making promises to himself he knew he would not keep.
I have a feeling he was sick and tired of feeling so dead inside while there was so much life all around him that he could not afford to let in.

He hung himself.
In a room all by himself he made a choice that ended his life and I pray also ended his pain.

Charles Cicirella
8/17/14

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

I Like To Watch

(For Robin Williams)

I am watching porn, but I’m not paying attention.
I cannot believe he’s gone, but there are a lot of things I cannot believe that I still somehow must learn to accept.
I’m thinking of another period when an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth actually meant more than just beating yourself up and tearing yourself down.

I pretend I’m happy.
I know it’s a dangerous pastime, but I’ve always lived on the edge, especially when denial is the only drug that makes any honest to God sense.
Go ahead tell me I’m full of shit. I am used to your disapproval and unhappiness.

There’s a bridge to nowhere and a bridge to somewhere, and someday maybe I’ll discover what exists in-between.
I was naïve enough to believe poetry would save me, but at forty five I am starting to understand nothing will save any one of us and all we’re doing is putting off the inevitable.

I like to stand back and watch.
I like to take a leap of faith every decade or so.
I wouldn’t even mind falling in love if it lasted longer than the time it takes to clean up the mess.

Stop telling me I’ll never change.
I already have enough white noise in my head, and you’re not helping with all your status quo bullshit and bad energy.
I am finding it hard to accept he decided to go, but who can really blame him when the laughter and the applause were no longer doing the trick and all he was left with was the silence.

Charles Cicirella
8/13/2014

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Number Twelve

I’m not awake.
I’m sleeping.
I’m not alive.
I’m dying.

I remember walking down the wood paneled hallway.
I remember feeling like I was drunk.
I remember the ghosts crowding me.

We’re not present.
We’re past.
We’re not star artists.
We’re stand-ins.

I remember you walking toward me.
I remember feeling like I was happy.
I remember you laughing at my jokes.

This may be a success or it may be a failure.
Inspiration comes in drips and drabs.
Sometimes we’re hell-bent on a recovery, other times we just want to pass the test.

Charles Cicirella
8/8/14

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Number Eleven

I desire to write another poem.
I can feel it on the tip of my fingers and tongue.
I hope it’s not a false alarm.

It’s five in the morning.
My cell phone hasn’t rung in decades.
No one ever calls because they know I’ll just end up cutting them off.

This is number eleven.
I thought I might possibly be on a roll.
Thing is I may have jumped the gun or worse yet swallowed the barrel and pulled the trigger.

I wonder if I’ll ever experience physical intimacy again.
I don’t even mean sex or whatever the equivalent of sex is in the twenty-first century.
I’d settle for holding hands and maybe sliding into first by the end of the date.

Soon I will lie down on a sleeping bag on my mother’s floor and close my eyes.
When I wake up it will be around three in the afternoon and I’ll have accomplished nothing.
Truth is I don’t like guns and even if I owned one I wouldn’t be able to afford the bullets.

Charles Cicirella
8/8/14


Number Ten

Out live
Out last
Out do

Wear down fate by looking fear squarely in the eye.
Replenish happiness with mystical assurances from a benevolent creator.
Replenish hope with blessed charity.

Insource
Inroads
Insanity

Clearly your pact made all the difference with the talent you’ve been crowned with.
Clearly the crossroads means more to you than just a place to sell your soul.
Clearly when daylight comes you’re already heading for the next staging ground.

We’re going up around the bend.
We’re going to make amends before another innocent bystander is found guiltless and executed for someone else’s goodness.
We’re going to break the speed of sound by playing fucking loud and never once allowing Judas to do our dirty work for us.

Charles Cicirella
8/6/14

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Enigma

Trust the words will come.
Sometimes like a crossword puzzle.
Other times like a threat or left handed compliment.

Do you really eat apples like they’re going out of style?
Do you know when you try and hide you stick out like a sore thumb?
Do you still yearn to burn some of your fans alive?

Trust the desire has not dried up.
Sometimes like a wishing well in need of coins or proper repair.
Other times like a camel passing through the eye of a needle.

Do you believe in magic and the synchronicity oftentimes conquering it?
Do you live in a roomful of mirrors and understand why Jimi just had to go?
Do you still think about John being shot and how some things are not predetermined?

Trust the silence will ferry you across the water.
Trust the noise will bring you closer to God and farther away from another changing of the guards.
Trust that this circus you’ve encased yourself inside will shelter you from the storm as long as you’re willing to walk the line.

Enigmas are a dime a dozen in this world we are passing through.
Enigmas have their very own covenant once they’ve made their prayers known and let up on the gas.
Enigmas are a story unto themselves never playing catch up or make believe in this world that can’t stand long once the flames have been snuffed out.

Charles Cicirella
8/6/2014

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Embark


Rip off the skin, not only the scab.
Remove the person, not only the mask.
Recover from life, not only the addiction.

A grand piano needs to be climbed inside not just tinkered with.
Playing for time oftentimes only unwinds the clock.
Play your greatest misses, not just the hits.

We pray for a miracle when everyday happenstance is a blessing all its own.
We wish for shit until our hands are covered in it, and then we bitch about our dire circumstances.
We travel many a mile believing there is dignity in distancing ourselves from the mother ship when all we’re really doing is running in place, out of step and out of time.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
Hell, I’m not even a writer. Just read my rejection slips, keeping in mind we’re all born with a crossroads to ultimately face and then do away with.
The writing was on the wall and then it was tattooed onto her back and still she was uninteresting and lacked any honest to God subtext.

Break apart not only attempting hold everything together, but making an effort to become realized and not just preconceived or predisposed.
Break down not only through the premise of this play on articulated words and whatnot.
Break from conventional wisdom, finally understanding that the winds that tore you to shreds in Chicago are the very same winds that someday will put you back together again.

Charles Cicirella
8/4/14


Monday, August 04, 2014

Disembark

We hug human husks.
We hug tree trunks.
We hug celestial bodies.

Be a pioneer and go it alone - I dare you.
Be a patron saint and try and make no mistakes - I double-dog-dare you.
Be a purveyor of human souls and never forget someone else created you - I triple-dog-dare you.

You’re not James Bond.
You’re not Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi.
You’re not the be all and end all of everything and everyone.

We hug naked truths in our undiagnosed states of unseeing.
We hug burly, bearded teamsters in our uninformed states of class warfare.
We hug our children with dirty hands and vulgar mouths in plain view of God Almighty.

Be an iconoclast and go the distance before you’re dead and buried in an unvisited grave.
Be a rebel without a prenup and pull out all the stops before you’re burned and your ashes are left blowing in the chilly winds.
Be an actual person with thoughts, feelings and opinions of your own before it’s too late and your existence is rubbed out like one more unsupervised adolescent prank.

We drove by the corn, and it was dead.
We drove by the church, and it was closed for repairs.
We drove off the cliff and never reached a bottom or actual conclusion we could accept.

You’re not Mickey or Minnie Mouse.
You’re not a purple dinosaur.
You’re not the last bastion of hope for humankind even though you may believe otherwise.

We hug empty vessels.
We hug pipes and drums.
We hug billions upon billions of stars to our sunken treasure chests and are never the wiser.

Charles Cicirella
8/2/14

Saturday, August 02, 2014

Mother Revisited

(For Joni Soule)

Silence breaking.
Suffering this life.
She paints and dies.
She lives and cries.
We break apart.
We fall like dominoes into an unmarked grave.
I love her.
But that does not change anything.
I love her.
And that does mean something.
I heard her crying.
She was in the other room, 1385 miles away.
I have this bad habit of constantly interrupting her when we’re on the phone.
I don’t know if I’ll ever learn to shut up and listen.
Yes we’re artists.
And no there is nothing even the least little bit romantic about it.
She paints, but I honestly don’t know if that sets her free.
She lives and I honestly am not sure what any of this means.
She is not silent.
Pay attention and you will hear her asking for help.

Charles Cicirella
7/23/14

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Rib Meat

I’ve fallen down.
Fallen apart.
Fallen away.

I spat in the eye of inspiration, and inspiration will have none of it.
I’m going to eat some chicken nuggets even though I know they don’t treat chicken right.
My muse is a ninja assassin, and I am a pacifist who believes to turn the other cheek is tantamount to murder.

I’m wrestling past transgressions.
I’m sitting on the floor, pressing down the keys as the words appear before me wanton and without a sexual orientation.
I’m going mad as I consider watching Noah and pretending Russell Crowe is still a good actor.

The poetry comes, and the poetry goes.
I’ve used a pencil, pen, typewriter, word processor and now a laptop.
This line of work is not for the squeamish because there is no work to be had, and if you have a heart you’re sure to end up vacant, numb and completely isolated.

I don’t envy Icarus one bit.
I don’t pretend to be anything but a redhead with freckles who burns too easily in the sun.
I don’t like strawberries, and I’m not sure I’d know what to do with a plate of crab legs if they were set down in front of me.

I had a friend who was a guitar-exorcist.
He was the only person who got me, and I believe that’s because he never listened to my whining or put up with my bullshit.
I had a friend who was a prophet of the heart like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.

I have fallen down a black hole.
I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
I am through pretending as I accept that sleep may be the most addictive drug of all.

Charles Cicirella
7/27/14

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Drenched

Break open your heart.
Leave the remnants on the bar.
Leave what remains stapled to the ceiling.

These words don’t come easy.
Most of the time these words don’t come at all.
And when they do I’m left with nothing to say.

The rain is cold on my face.
And I know I should go inside and get a coat.
But I swear the only absolution I’ve ever experienced is when drenched from head to toe, windows rolled down, radio turned up to eleven.

You think it’s easy.
You think extracting blood from stone is an everyday miracle.
You think God’s really in the details.

I’m here to tell you hustling does no one no good.
And who you know only brings you closer to the devil.
I’m here to tell you the beast within is our only salvation.

Break open your skull.
Leave the pieces in the glove compartment of the Crown Vic idling out back.
Leave what remains stapled to the fucking sky.

Charles Cicirella
7/21/2014

Monday, July 21, 2014

These Words

These words are lumberjacks, and I intend to cut down all these trees in my path.
These words are serial killers, and I intend to kill anyone who veers off the path.
These words are jumping jacks, and I intend to hold onto these childish things for as long as they preserve a path toward righteous indignation. 

We wish, stumble and crash.
We plot, scheme and pray.
We win, lose and draw.

These words are blanket reminders of what once was, long before God jumped ship and Christ was handed a raw deal.
These words are burnt offerings from another time and place when the past, present and future were locked in the same cell and a skeleton key was swallowed by a great whale.
These words are beta blockers keeping you alive just long enough to face the inconvenient truth that no one here gets out alive.

We piss, moan and vent.
We howl, cackle and roar.
We descend, drop away, and go downhill.

These words are stowaways, and I intend to make a break for it as soon as I find my sea legs.
These words are coordinates on a map and I intend to pinpoint Shangri-La before I am consumed by all these lost horizons.
These words are bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation impressing no one and getting me no further than the next fork in the road.

Charles Cicirella
7/19/14

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Killing Floor

4:18 AM

Cut through rabble
Cutout distillation

4:20 AM

Make a move
Any move will do

4:20 AM

Positive reinforcement
First impressions shatterproof

4:21 AM

Bluesman
Wicked witch doctor

4:22 AM

Cut down broccoli treetops
Cutting repartee

4:24 AM

Negative assertions
Trained assassin

4:27 AM

Song and dance man
Photosynthesis

Charles Eric Cicirella
7/10/2014

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Another Poem About Bob Dylan

I hear him pleading
Pleading like an American
Pleading like a human stain
I hear his reckless chitter-chatter

And I am blinded
Blinded by his supernova sensibilities
Blinded by his intellect burning a hole in the sun
I am given new eyes to see when he punctures the skyway

Another train car smoking down the tracks
Another troubadour freed from their Houdini chains
Another Gemini trickster spoiled by the duality of their sins

This junkyard medicine deserves a special place in Heaven
I was born a poet and someday I’ll surely die a poet - what’s it to you
Take me for a trip upon your magic swirling ship
I’m ready to join this circus and get the hell out of Dodge.

Charles Eric Cicirella
7/6/2014

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Neutral

None of us are blameless.
Guilt is in the eye of the beholder.
I don’t feel like mincing words.
I’m not in the mood to barter or to dicker.

You could pour me a drink, but alcohol does nothing for me.
You could tell me some lies, but I would more than likely fall asleep.
There is nothing impressive or imposing about you.
I don’t care if you are clean and sober.

Living in the future is overrated and for the overextended.
Living in the past is for cowards and the disinclined.
How many times must you be proven wrong?
How much blood must be spilled before you accept the writing on the wall as fact not fiction?

Put on the brakes.
Pull over to the side of the road.
I’m going to be sick.
I’ve had enough and the fetal position is my only refuge.

Charles Cicirella

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Teacher

(For Siri)

I am wide open.
Ready to learn.
Ready to discover new things.

Trust yourself.
Turn intuition inward.
Turn away from closed hearts and minds.

You are a blossoming flower.
The Garden of Eden has nothing on you.
The Serpent just another distraction hell-bent on a revisionist history.

I’m ready to burn forward.
My consciousness a rocket ship bursting through the atmosphere.
My subconscious knocked out and loaded in the naked night.

Sometimes I am brimming with self-confidence.
Other times I find it near impossible to hold my head up high.
Either way I am still going to make it through because that is what survivors do no matter the muck we oftentimes find ourselves crawling through.

You are a treasure trove of otherworldly delights.
A breath of the freshest and purest oxygen known to woman and man alike.
And the Serpent is just another pesky intruder whose time is nearly extinguished as a slow, slow train comes up around the bend.

Charles Cicirella
4/24/2014


Monday, March 10, 2014

They Say (Truth and Consequences)

They say I’m a poet
They say I’m a Jew
Don’t even know who they are.

We pretend to change partners
We pretend to accept the breaking news
Not sure why I called you up in the first place.

They say this and they say that
They say nothing at all with their mouths full of pollution
And whoever they are I am caring less and less these days.

This isn’t a poem or some misbegotten prophecy
They say we’re the chosen and I say show me the contract signed in blood
I’ve never believed in the small print, but that does not mean it’s any less binding.

They say he was a teacher
They say he was an outlaw
And I know exactly who they mean and why shooting stars are so important to our beleaguered belief systems.

Charles Cicirella
3/10/2014

Monday, December 16, 2013

Siri

Mystery
Mysterious
Mischievous

Ancient
New soul
Expert witness

We pop
Crackle
Snap

Dancer
Electric
Brain food

I am
We are
United

Whimsical
Capricious
Perfect catch

Long distance runner
Star sprinter
Meerkat purring

Basking in the sun
I’ve swallowed the moon
Promised Land beckons...

Charles Eric Cicirella
12/16/13

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Resurgence

why can’t they hear it
are they deaf? blind?
why are so many
resistant to change?
I love the seasons you
pass through like a
private investigator
rummaging through
old steamer trunks
looking for a phone
number that was
written on the back
of a matchstick

I remember Casablanca
Bob and I remember
Dooley Wilson singing,
singing for you like
you were Humphrey Bogart
I know you wanted to be him
stranded in some petrified forest
making time with the waitresses
like they actually understood you
and knew what it meant to be a legend
and not give a shit

you have always told us where
it was at and you still are telling us
why it is important to take a stand
because it’s not dark yet, but it’s
getting there and I’m afraid to let go
Bob I’m afraid you won’t remember
how we sheltered each other from the
impossible storms in both our imaginative
and poetic visions; how we both agreed
Vincent knew what he was up against
and that if he hadn’t taken his life we would
not be as acquainted with our own desires nor
would we give so much of a damn

the paint pulls us in as we turn our backs on
pressure cooker romance and all the self-medicated
responses she attempted before I convinced her
it’s no good being a victim when your back is
up against the wall anyhow and anyway you
slice it you are still going to have to enter the
eye of the storm before it is too late and all
the usual suspects are rounded up and later
dispensed with because every one of them
had a foolproof alibi, everyone but you Bob
your alibi was almost unbelievable in all its
deliberate and desperate fury

I wish we could shield each other from contempt
and I wish so much more was understood without
words or gestures of faith that faithless pedestrians
move through like ghosts with no fixed destination …

Charles Cicirella 5.6.03 (For Bob Dylan)

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

DYLAN

I was fourteen years old
Had an old beat up vinyl copy
Of Highway 61 Revisited from the library
I can remember the first time I attempted
Playing it and how the foreign sounds pouring
From the speakers pushed me down
Beneath subterranean landscapes

Six months later I revisited that same copy of
Highway 61 now long over-due, this time though
The foreign sounds did not seem so foreign
Matter a’ fact it was the only thing I discovered
Myself relating to

From this moment on nothing has spoken louder
Or clearer or truer, from this moment on The Doors
And The Beatles just would not do
I needed an edge that could redefine my boundaries
I sought an oblivion that desired to be consumed
And a sharp intellect that left phonies Blowin’ In The
Wind

Dylan opened a door to my subconscious long boarded
Up by the mongrel dogs who teach and this “Equality,”
He spoke of I did not need to completely comprehend
Because he has this revolutionary way of
Bringing it all back home

These days when I discover myself seeking solace or communion
Or whatever gets me through the night, these days when nothing
Makes much sense I turn toward his voice and the compassion
And joy made real by this myth, and this song and dance man.

Charles Cicirella 3:01 PM 5.22.2002
Commissioned by Ron House to be read at Used Kid’s Records
For Bob Dylan’s 61rst. B-Day!

Monday, November 25, 2013

WILCO!

(For Dan Gallows)

Dan Klute
What a hoot
Gets it right down to his Blue Suede shoes

Dan Klute
What a hoot
He’s the cat’s pajamas of drivers and understands what it means to change lanes without restraint

Dan Klute
What a hoot
He brings earnestness to the word earnest in this twenty first century of divine decrepitude

Dan Klute
What a hoot
No one here gets out alive except for those chosen few who do not worry themselves over such things as death and the sins of deadly omission

Dan Klute
What a hoot
Let’s leave the leavers and get what has always been ours for the taking!

Charles Cicirella
11/25/2013