Boobies (A Love Poem)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-18T17_20_42-07_00

Ode to a Scottish lass who revs my engine like no other.
I haven’t driven a car since I was nineteen and even though people think I’m weird my global footprint can eat theirs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
She’s as fresh as a daisy if daisies refused to surrender even under the most extreme of William Shatner conditions.

I wish space would have kept him then Nimoy could have had the last laugh.
He was only good in that episode of The Twilight Zone and that’s only because he didn’t have much dialogue.
It’s time to reverse engineer capitalism and cease and desist from killing people simply because they’re attempting to pay their bills.

In 2002 my survival instinct went belly up and I think it had something to do with 911 or maybe I’m just saying that so I can pretend I’m a victim like Monica Lewinsky.
You know the world is coming to an end when it turns out Ghost Dad is a serial rapist and what’s even crazier we’re supposed to feel sorry for him.
I’m tired of people laughing at the wrong shit especially when the worst you can say about Pryor is he shot his car and oh ya lit himself on fire.

I desire to make love to Kat with full sentences and perhaps we can even bring a dictionary along in case I get tired and need backup.
She is the syrup on my hotcakes and the butter on my bread. I know I need to start eating better and that all these processed foods will kill me before even an assassin’s bullet locates my soft spot.
I may have gone too far and I hope that’s not the case because if I alienate Kat not sure what I’d do other than cry in my root beer and act all surprised like a sloth that cannot get their bearings.

Charles Cicirella
10/18/2021

A Roomful of Jimi Hendrix’s Mirrors

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-16T21_34_23-07_00

Shards of glass cutting into everything, including my chicken liver, pasty white skin.
My belly button is like a porthole on the Love Boat.
I don’t even know what that last line means, but when I figure it out I’ll call Juliet Cook so she can talk me off the ledge.

We’re all hedging our bets that the bought and paid for dumbass, greedy politicians will, when push comes to shove, do the right thing. Though to be perfectly honest, I believe, we’re already screwed, just like the dinosaurs long before an asteroid supremely rained down on their big dino asses.
I have no idea where or when the next words will come and still I’m all in with every poem I write, musical note I strike and brushstroke I brandish like a porn star ready to die on whichever hill they’re ordered to fuck next.
I’ve walked a tightrope from the moment I started writing poetry and probably even before then. Social safety nets are for the birds when our country is too afraid to actually help anyone and placating your sworn enemies is accepted as business as usual.

It’s sickening how quickly our country has moved into a post-truth wasteland and how the supposed powers that be are not doing a damn thing to push back on any of the whitewashed, revisionist bullshit.
Now we’re seen as traitors if we stand up for what we believe in against a tide of read-the-room, Kabuki politics that keeps social media buzzing as our eyes grow tired and turn their hunchbacks on us.
I gazed into Jimi Hendrix’s bellybutton and what I saw was a human being doing their damndest to outrun the hellhounds plaguing him long before being recast as the guitar messiah he was and will forever be.

Shards of glass slice into my arms like unapologetic razorblades seeking their next victim to slay with their shiny, disposable punchlines.
My poetry is never a cry for help, but instead a harbinger of things to come.
I’m not Chicken Little, but if I were I would tell you we’ve been bleeding from our anuses for far too long and not even the three preserved human heads in Jeffrey’s refrigerator would disagree with me.

Charles Cicirella
10/13/2021

There was only Jim.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-15T21_28_25-07_00

Whiskey Priest
23 years he has been gone
Clown assassin, repo man of our nightmares

Never known anyone who burned as hot
He recognized my passion as we lit each other on fire
Pyromaniac artists instilling the truth in anything and anyone who would listen

I was sleeping in the studio on Maynard when Jim opened the door with a flaming curtain over his arm
When I asked what was going on he said it’s no big deal so I went back to bed
Half of his room was soot and the bathtub was never the same, but we survived like game of sport cadavers have a tendency to do

Came up on the Comfest stage with me and expounded on how he inherited nothing
That was just a few years before he laid the cash on the desk and hung himself for someone else’s sins
The white jeep turned out to be beige and the girl in the poppies was not really dead, she was only sleeping like femme fatales oftentimes will

There was only Jim, that’s it and then poof he was gone like a dandelion puff in the action painting splattered wind
So many try and jump on his bandwagon, but he only allowed a few of us to see behind the mask and I’d tell you what was there, but then I’d have to kill you
23 fucking years and for anyone who believes I’m beating a dead horse I get that because you never really got him to begin with.

Charles Cicirella
10/15/2021

Gun Moll

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-15T02_02_47-07_00

Takes shit from no one
One of the many reasons I love her so much
It doesn’t hurt that Al Pacino called her baby

She’s Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr and Lauren Bacall all rolled into one shot of pure cinematic gold
You want straight talk call Nichole Hersey and statistically speaking she’ll surprise you with every slippery syllable that catapults from her big red mouth
You want to lose your shit laughing about just about anything under the sun call Nichole Hersey and she’ll have you rolling in the aisles like a big bouncing ball

Takes shit from no one as she clutches Al’s arm and they walk down the NY streets like a couple of made goys in search of contraband and canoodling
We’re both after the same thing; to pay it forward as best we can and to get out of here alive before the concert is over and security clears the floor
I wish I could afford to sit front row with her one time as Bob acknowledges us both in his mercurial, Huckleberry Finn way and we leave floating on cloud nine

Her mom cracks me up
Makes me wish I could find Rhode Island on the map and pay the family a visit
I promise to stay only long enough that the impression I leave is favorable and no one feels they got left holding the wrong end of the stick

She’s Gene Tierney, Dorothy Lamour and Joan Bennet all rolled into a ring of fire and fearsome innuendos
She gives as good as she gets and I respect the hell out of her for holding her ground and being loyal to the teeth
When she told me about throwing a dish of pasta on the floor and leaving the room I nearly lost my shit because I knew exactly where she was coming from and how that place isn’t easy to digest on an empty stomach.

Charles Cicirella
10/15/2021

You can’t wipe your friends on the couch.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-14T22_33_22-07_00 

Finger buried up my nose as I try and figure out what I’m doing here.
I remember my grandmother’s crooked index finger and how she would joke about giving people directions and them getting lost.
My memory seems to be slipping and things are getting jumbled that come out of my mouth. Starting to wonder if I also have been built for obsolescence and how much time there is left on my warranty.

The Bonfire of the Vanities has got nothing on you and maybe before it’s too late we can cook s’mores over a Fahrenheit 451 campfire and reminisce about all our many lost horizons.
I was grasping at straws and before I knew it I was at a Red Barn in South Euclid ordering fried chicken knowing my goose would soon be cooked.
Now it’s a Taco Bell and I so badly wish we could go back to the way things were.

I want to strip down to whatever my skivvies are and bask in the Raymond Chandler sun before Robert Mitchum gets home and punishes me for something I didn’t even do.
I’d tell you I’m at a loss for words, but I’ve used that excuse too often the last couple of decades so I best own up to all the serial poetry I’ve been writing before it gets crime noir dark and the lemmings are again driven into the ocean by Walt Disney.
My spitfire poetry is not firing on all cylinders as I rub my cock and pray more than dust comes out this time around.

I was in a rooming house on Ninth Avenue in Columbus when the cockroaches came a-calling. Thankfully the Leonard Cohen vinyl survived the second fire.
Timothy Dewitt and I stood on the roof, drinking cheap vodka, screaming the lyrics to “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)” at the top of our lungs.
That was long before Timothy lost his shit and I decided Columbus was no longer the place for me.

Now I’m back in Cleveland with a new couch and even less wherewithal than I had before.
My moral compass is suffering from ED and there’s little I can do about it, but sharpen the pencil in my mind and pray I can keep up with the stream of consciousness dictation spewing out like a volcano with ADHD.
Ben recently informed me that Jim Murray was dead and that made me so sad I nearly forgot why I was here and got a job.

Just kidding.

Charles Cicirella
10/14/2021

What is Matt Amodio?

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-09T12_01_52-07_00 

Eraserhead that’s the first thing I thought of the first time he was introduced on Jeopardy!
Wasn’t sure what to make of the shiny silver jacket, but truth be told I never noticed him answering what for every clue.
He’s the first Jeopardy! champion I find myself really relating to and I believe that’s because he’s as cool as a cucumber as he annihilates his next victims.

Jeopardy! should be thanking their lucky stars for Matt coming along when he did because they still have yet to pull the trigger on a permanent host and wash the stink of Mike Richards off of them.
I love watching him because I still find myself being able to play along.
For those people who feel he is making the game less fun they need to keep in mind Matt Amodio is not there for them.

His unbridled enthusiasm speaks volumes as does his facial expressions when he surprises himself at how much money he has so far won.
You can clearly tell it means something to him when he figures out a clue even he wasn’t sure he knew.
Maybe he’ll unseat the G.O.A.T and make everyone realize anything is possible in these days of prefabricated bliss and PHD students that go bump in the night.

He’s so pleasant and that’s so long overdue as snark becomes our national pastime and tweets replace the “Gettysburg Address” for brevity.
He makes sure everyone gets their Matt time on social media because he clearly understands how much it means to others to be recognized by a Jeopardy! champion.
He’s the very first champion I have seen be so open and available and that leaves me speechless as I look forward to tuning in again.

Charles Cicirella
10/9/2021

Hands

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-09T04_07_46-07_00

When I look at my hands they look like someone else’s hands and when I touch myself it feels like there’s no one there.
A stranger with a low self-esteem bordering on insanity as these strange encounters only push me deeper towards the big sleep.
We’re fools, complete idiots if we believe the chiming bell is not chiming for us.

These hands, these ikons, these relics from a bygone era violently trespass through the fog of my memory and confessions mislaid.
I desire to break inside of myself, but I know there is no one home and that even Fort Knox has to take a break every now and then.
Resistance is futile when the oppressors you’re going against already know your credit score and that beating you is only smart if they’re the village idiot.

My fingers are too fat to hit the proper keys so the poetry is gibberish and that’s nothing new, just ask the hacks that proofread this shit.
I pick up the phone and ask for help and as I await an answer I’m convinced my innocence will someday no longer be up for debate.
Being an artist is a calling like being a priest or serial killer. The hours are long and the lines at the confessional never abate.

Feeling sick to my stomach and nothing I do makes me feel any better.
Starting to believe normalcy is overrated and the cautionary tale that is my life impresses no one, including my invisible therapist.
When I look at my hands I imagine them around my neck, but even that offers no comfort as I try sitting still while the grim reaper cuts my hair and shaves off this Moses beard.

Charles Cicirella
10/6/2021

Holly the Magnificent Storyteller

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-10-09T03_46_46-07_00

When Joe becomes annoyed I’m so disheartened.
The way Holly spins a tail never fails to leave me wanting more.
Think Aesop if he was hell bent for leather and smoked like a beatific chimney.

Storytime with the Cohen's is a very special time and one I never take for granted.
You know you’re part of the pack when Holly tucks you in with her words of wisdom and whatnot.
I’m leaving on the midnight train to Georgia and before I go I just wanted to say your tangents repeatedly put me under your spell.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered is where I’m at.
It’s all on account of this woman who weaves together words like no one else I know and leaves me in a transformative state where I’m set free from the day’s murdersome agenda of piss poor shenanigans.
Time to take a break and stop believing so fervently in the fairy tales the Brothers Grimm poured into us like antifreeze.

When Joe interrupts Holly I almost want to stand up and dance a jig because maybe that will distract from the uncomfortable energy entering the room like Elijah on a three day bender.
She’s rhapsodic in her delivery and it helps to heal me and feel less beleaguered.
I know there’s no going back when Holly the Magnificent Storyteller comes to your town and packs them in with her capstone knowledge and knitting needle asides.

Charles Cicirella
10/9/2021

Glasgow Remnants of a Sun Purged and Wanton

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-09-07T20_01_30-07_00

The writing is not advancing, but you still slip into my mind like a chauffeur who drives only in reverse while blindfolded.
Naked in your screaming passivity which has nothing whatsoever to do with passive aggression or the rigors of standing tall in such a small world.
We stood beneath the waterfall, oh wait that wasn’t you, but if it had been I know the outcome wouldn’t have been so dark or fraught with danger.

My eyes are trained on you like a rifle scope that breeds contempt because it’s the American way.
Some will find that last line to be a threat which is complete and utter BS because as threats go I’m not one to be so openly violent even though the claw marks on my forehead tell a different story.
I love this place I discover myself in where only words course through my veins and your muse visits with infinite possibilities.

Your voice slices through my chain link desolation and whispers sweet nothings into ears I don’t use nearly enough.
This jigsaw puzzle escapism rallies around my dead soul as it attempts reviving a burned out star.
I cupped your breasts in my dirty hands and would have apologized for my filth, but I was pretty certain you didn’t mind my mechanic hands as long as they were fruitful and multiplied.

Writing exists over there while I stand apart from my endless attempts to write the great American poem or at the very least not shit the bed.
Clothes only get in our way as we stop, drop and listen to the whippoorwill suffering of another dead drunk country singer.
I oftentimes surprise myself when writing for you Kat because you allow me to be Charlie and that is so freeing in these days of cloudburst patriotism.

Charles Cicirella
9/7/2021

Break Open Our Skullbanks (For Bob Sauls)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-29T14_35_13-07_00

Channeling the anguish of this life perversity
Sweating in the trenches, throwing shade as we give up our ghosts
It’s so messed up the gun held to our temples as another action painting goes belly up

I remember the Stoneman Gallery and how Bob was so kind to record me in the backroom
He even added some guitar licks as I screamed like a child bride hopped up on Red Bull and Prednisone
I learned what a real journeyman is as I hung out in his space and he commanded the room with his Buddha silences

Resisting the pageantry of blood forestalled like a hurricane of broken rainbows and sawed off razorblades
He hits just the right notes as we fall into a trance, an audience of bottom feeders hell-bent on finding the deli tray and pigging out
Dick’s Den cannot hold him; in fact I don’t believe there’s a venue big enough to capture the wounded sounds this Eagle Scout makes with his hands and murmuring mouth

Foretelling a tale older than Christ and larger than the oldest dinosaur there’s no blues this man hasn’t swallowed whole
A junkyard dog pursuing truth in a countryside of busted whores and broken down pimps
Think Raymond Chandler pumping out the pulp as Bob eviscerates the guitar strings with his crime noir fingering leaving no stone unturned or body uninvestigated.

Charles Cicirella
8/29/2021

Cleanse Your Soul

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-26T12_22_06-07_00

Buddha didn’t need drugs.
He sat beneath the Bodhi Tree and contemplated the Great Mystery.
I believe much of the reason you ingest so many intoxicants is because you’re simply bored.

Self-destruction is a skeleton key that unlocks nothing but dread.
I had a best friend who drank a twelve pack of Canadian beer every night claiming it was the only thing that helped him sleep.
We lie to ourselves because we believe it’s easier than facing the truth that we’re not perfect and down time is the sap seeping into our souls like arsenic and old lace.

I’m stymied by so much self-loathing from someone who has been the toast of the town for so long.
Placing undue stress on yourself by attempting to achieve someone else’s goals or claiming another person’s expectations as your own is a very real form of suicide you best learn to gravitate away from sooner than later.
In school I looked up to you and not only because you are a couple of inches taller.

Buddha didn’t warrant drugs.
In fact Buddha discovered a path to self-reliance and self-acceptance that kept unhealthy thoughts at bay and rejuvenated a waning moon.
I cannot stress enough how much you are loved and it is imperative you figure out a way to turn that love inwards.

A breakdown of the soul is tantamount to someone breaking into your house and taking a shit on your floor.
The catch 22 is locking all of your doors and windows doesn’t make you any safer when your thoughts turn to self-harm.
I’m ready to intervene if and when I believe you’re about to go off the deep end because human beings must never stop being human to each other.

I love you more than I love God.

Charles Cicirella
8/24/2021

It’s not easy being anyone.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-20T14_53_03-07_00

Sometimes I look down at my legs and I don’t know who that is.
I’m finding it more and more difficult to accept that those with evil intentions are too often rewarded for their bad acts while people who are fair and generous are driven into the sea.
When Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt he didn’t pick favorites, keep this in mind the next time you expect to get blood out of a solid rock.

It’s not easy being anyone.
It’s not easy being me.
It’s not easy being Kermit the Frog.

Charles Cicirella
8/19/2021

You Got This! (For Buzzy Cohen)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-19T21_44_04-07_00

First time I saw him I was like who does this guy think he is and yet he grew on me like barnacles on the hull of a ship.
Sure he’s flashy and perhaps even full of himself, but it became all too apparent he had a heart of gold just like Alex Trebek.
In 2021 when he hosted the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions I was incredibly impressed with how he took to hosting like a duck to water.

Like Alex he surprises you with his dry wit and also like Alex you want to get to know Buzzy because he seems like the guy.
I try to imagine him as some big music executive and yet I believe his real comfort zone would be as the next host of Jeopardy!
I know Sony has already made their decision, but I have a feeling that soon we’re all going to be surprised and pleased as Sony has buyer’s remorse as loyal fans run to the nearest fire exits.

I have a tendency to shit where I sleep. It’s a bad habit and one I best work on before I end up living under a bridge like a great, ugly troll.
Buzzy had had enough and who can blame him as my incendiary tweets burn like roman candles stuck in the eye of an apoplectic moon.
I’m glad we’re okay again because I want to witness Buzzy as he possibly steps behind the lectern of the greatest game show ever.

Think Alex Trebek and Groucho all rolled into one matzo ball.
Think Allen Ludden and Peter Marshall and get ready to be thrown for a loop.
We must think outside the box and stop relying upon only safe choices when our world desperately needs a new voice and a classic energy to break us out of this slump we all too readily settle for.

Charles Cicirella
8/18/2021

The Written Word

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-16T14_52_28-07_00

The writing is the best of me and the only way I’ll ever get free.
I pull the pen out of the scabbard and thrust it deep into my chest.
The words I write while dying will be ignored because poets only get noticed once they’re no longer with us.

Was that last line a cry for help? No, of course not because I don’t need any help in saving me and I trust you can do the same for yourself.
Need to shake all of the pre-programmed sentences out of my head because my fingers are good soldiers and do precisely what they’re told.
The stream of consciousness I ride like choppy waves exemplifies just how dangerous it is to be a true artist in this untruthful place.

I’m thinking about Daniel Snethen, another bearded poet who breaks with tradition by being untraditionally gallant in his hunt for a reality that doesn’t try our souls so surreptitiously.
I wish to eat pie with him and his friend Lilly in some non-descript city where nothing can touch us, including our own shortcomings.
Be careful of the frown police who will throw you in their unfriendly jail as they judge your unhappiness as an affront to their masquerade of civility.

The writing is what gets me through. Even when the poetry isn’t advancing I’m still a poet because I’ve worn that mark since before the Israelites were led out of Egypt.
I take out my crayon and start scribbling on everything, praying some sense can be made from this elemental mess of pretense.
The words I write while living will go unnoticed because poets only get their due once they’ve proven they were only kidding and Humpty Dumpty really cannot be put back together again.

Charles Cicirella
8/16/2021

“Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose”

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-15T12_35_07-07_00

Did Adam and Eve come with an instruction manual?
Think about it the next time you’re eating ribs.
Think about it the next time you’re waist deep in your significant other’s red box.

I know how that sounds and what you’re now thinking, but please understand I’m not only a poet on television, which means I’m always looking for a way out of this labyrinth of ticky tacky little boxes.
Burning as hot as a blue tip as my incendiary thoughts gain entrance into your mind and redecorate the foyer with blood stamps and Wilhelm screams.
I’ve exhausted all avenues that could possibly result in bluebird happiness of course I could be focusing too much on world events or who the next host of Jeopardy! will be.

Did Bonnie and Clyde have an exit strategy?
Think about it the next time you’re filling yourself up with high fructose corn syrup and 30 caliber bullets.
Think about it the next time you find yourself on the hook for a crime you’re almost certain you did not commit.

“Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose” that’s what Kris wrote and Janis sang as she showed all those Port Arthur fucks just how resilient she was as an overdose became her silver lining from all the poor choices she could no longer ignore.
I saw Kristofferson once in concert. I was front row and even handed him some of my poetry. I’m still waiting for him to call like I’m still waiting for a thief in the night to calm my wet market fears.
I need to take some allergy medicine because I feel the nausea coming on and once it takes hold I’m no good to anyone including myself.

Charles Cicirella
8/15/2021

Piracy and Pessimism

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-14T20_16_25-07_00

Piracy and pessimism has been the American way since wiping out an indigenous people because they had the nerve to protect their land.
Christopher Columbus was a slave trader just like our founding fathers were slave owners and I wonder why so many people choose to treat people like property as if it’s their sovereign right to tread on someone else’s freedom.
The universal mind has been outlawed as crucifixion and rape become the lost integer to the equation of our inhuman depravity to one another.

I’m stymied by what’s going on and how civil liberties have become such a hot button issue.
Of course the last President didn’t help matters much as ignorance became the soup to nuts method we now employ toward everything, including our very own children’s safety.
Rose tinted glasses defeat the purpose if your only purpose is to go through the world blind, pretending that everyone has it out for you.

I was alone on a desert island with just my thoughts and unmitigated paranoia. It felt good to unplug from the rat race until realizing the true rat race was in my claustrophobic mind.
I had to decide between taking Lord of the Flies or The Communist Manifesto and finally decided neither one truly spoke to the broken mechanism that is my lost horizon.
We stand up for this or that outmoded slogan forgetting that words written on placards and screamed at the top of our lungs do nothing more than shield ourselves from owning up to our own incalculable sins.

America as a concept has been flawed from the jump because White Shadow wasn’t just a show it was a harbinger of sentiments sensationalized by another head up their ass TV executive.
I’m an orphan not because I choose to be an orphan, but because lying eyes fell asleep on the job as we survive on Magic Evie’s unemployment and the promise that nothing is real once you lose sight of both the risk and the reward.
I wish there was such a thing as universal truth, but it’s become painstakingly clear that we cannot afford such luxuries when we continue turning our backs on each other like its business as usual.

Charles Cicirella
8/14/21

Break Free

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-08-14T19_50_21-07_00

Lasting impressions are the first to go when the paint stops drying and the grass refuses to grow.
Let’s ignore mask mandates, vaccines and sensible gun legislation because you clearly believe you’re beholden to no one, but yourself.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth and once you put down your Bible maybe you’ll start to see the reckoning through all the reprisals you’ve forsaken.

Hearing the United States Government acting all surprised at how quickly the Taliban is taking back Afghanistan sickens me because they had to know the fire they’d start when they kicked the gasoline can down an alley of broken dreams.
America never finishes what it starts as we take one dump after the next on this or that country and not once consider the ramifications from our strong arm policies of nationalism and sadism.
Why are we continuing to follow Trump’s foreign policy as Biden stumbles around like Mr. Magoo after a lobotomy?

I feel like tearing at my white skin as another cop kills another black or brown person and there’s still no recourse and there never will be any justice at this rate.
You want to lighten the load of your white guilt well then try to keep in mind that words have consequences as does non-action and non-compliance to the truth.
The neo-libs are doing just as much damage as the GOP as a very real caste system removes the poor from the equation exponentially.

I’m tired; I’m sick and I've realized getting high was just keeping me from standing tall inside this body, this temple of strength and unlimited potential.
I desire to break free from the chains that bind and hold me back from whatever memories I still refuse to look in the eye.
The first impression I had of me when I came out of the womb was that I had a lot of work to do to get back to a place where I trusted myself unconditionally.

Charles Cicirella
8/14/2021

Grimy Love (for Juliet)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-07-13T19_11_13-07_00

High strung as the moon
Keeps affecting and creating
A spitfire and poetry dominatrix

The pit bull approached and I panicked
I don’t remember this happening
Just like Juliet doesn’t remember me ripping up her cigarettes on the way to COSI

I recall when we would bake cookies
It was the one thing we did together that caused no strife
Twin Peaks was another tactic to calm the turbulent storm while allowing me a respite from my own calamity of loneliness

When talking about the unvaccinated we both get hot under the collar because the thought that someone else’s’ ignorance could cost us our lives is complete and utter BS
Grimy love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be especially when our selfhood is hidden within the relics of our cloak and dagger hearts
When I tell people I was once a telephone psychic it always gets a big laugh, but what they don’t understand is that being an artist uses the same toolset, just for a lot less money

We’re both night owls and I believe that’s because creative sparks await nightfall before presenting themselves in full regalia
I have a scratchy throat which worries me because I cannot afford a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future
This poem isn’t making me happy, so I’m going to lie down and when I get up perhaps everything will make more sense or at the very least not aggravate me so much.

Charles Cicirella
7/9/2021

Heroine (For Lori)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-07-08T01_55_37-07_00

Known her since the end of time
An apocalypse denied
Resistance is futile when you’re an asshole

When I first met Lori she was Lilac
I was smitten from the jump
Let’s stop kidding ourselves and live already

Drawn to her like an astronaut is drawn to their mothership
I was bound and gagged the day we laid together in Michelle’s crawlspace
Haunted democracies are not for the faint of heart

Lori has always known I’d end up in the desert
Hanging out among the abandoned and frustrated
Stopped laying down my lodestone because the axel grease kept getting ensnared in my beard

She informed me while we were on the phone tonight that I was shrinking
I told her my usual line about Jewish people being the only ones who truly know the horror of becoming smaller
Sometimes while masturbating I forget to let go and before I know it all hell breaks loose behind the gates of morning

Known her since we were both fledglings
Lori taught me all about the space time continuum as she holds her breath and vanishes
Futility is not all it’s cracked up to be when you’ve lost the scent of your soulmate.

Charles Cicirella
7/8/2021

We all have a target on our backs. (For JoePockets)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2021-04-06T10_58_41-07_00

This isn’t about
Black or white
Stripes or polka dots

We all have a lot of love
Some of us need to work on our rage
Constant pushing only backs you into a corner

I’m Spartacus
Been a squeaky wheel for as long as I can remember
Now I’m thinking about JoePockets and the dear friends they’ve become through the pandemic

He’s Spartacus
Doesn’t know the word surrender because all that buys you is more self-loathing
It’s a treacherous climb up the mountain pass, but if you don’t try you’ll never advance

If your spirit is breaking you’re not alone
2020 was a killer and 2021 isn’t shaping up to be much better
If we don’t start pushing back the Republicans and their deadly politics will wipe out anything resembling free speech

Our humanity is on the line
We need to stop being sheep
Realize how easily we’re being culled

Charles Cicirella
4/5/2021