Animal Crackers

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-11T12_12_13-07_00

I know you’re hungry. I’m hungry too.
The way you get my words.
The way you make music from words and words into crystal latticed semiconductors of hypnotic flow is a sight to behold. And I refuse to surrender to your resolve because my own resolve is plenty good enough and has gotten me this far.

These are not love letters. I’m not even semi-hard as I type this.
These are not Letters to Milena so don’t go getting your panties all in a bunch.
I need to experience Sabbath with you one on one. Like a live television broadcast there will be commercial breaks and we’ll get to know one another in the green room.

When I mentioned that writing was for me like taking down dictation straight from my brainstem and you responded it was the same for you, that’s when I started to believe you were a believer just like me.
Streams of consciousness shoot through our battle fatigues and we mustn’t worry about the cost we’ll ultimately pay because our deliverance has always been contingent on absolute and abject otherness and the belief that free will is only half of the picture.
Our pasts are past due and the reason we’re so comfortable with these futuristic cave drawings is because we were present when they first came into bloody being. Just like when a baby cuts their first tooth and a little whiskey helps kill the pain.

Grouch Marx is our benefactor. Harpo Marx his silent partner in the lost art of slapstick slaughter.
What happens when all of our Christ figurines have come down with a case of the flu? What happens if we don’t figure some way to withstand our own desperate pleas?
I need for us to meet with no distractions, including all of that needless expediency that gets us to the good part that much faster and yet proves to be just more buzzkill.

I like my animal crackers straight from the zoo.
I like my honey straight from the honeybee.
I like my poetry straight from the spicket. At first I thought you were a mirage then it became all too apparent that you are flesh, blood and words and burn hotter than rocket fuel.

Charles Cicirella
7/8/2015

Thin Ice

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-05T21_02_23-07_00

Just hit the pipe.
It’s just some pot.
Nothing heavy like heroin, cocaine or alcohol.

Haven’t written in a few days, but the writing is an old friend so odds are it will forgive me.
I know we’re on thin ice ever since I confessed to feeling love and you’re still trying to keep it casual in your head even though the rest of your body is warm for my form.
There’s no denying I’m an instigator even when I’m saying nothing, eyes closed, hands unclenched.

They say Bernie Sanders is a socialist like that’s a mark against him.
Conservative media, liberal media they’re all eating and drinking from the same trough. The only one who is telling the truth other than Bernie is Elizabeth Warren, but she’s not running and Bernie doesn’t have a chance in hell of even winning the nomination.
This poem is all over the map because I cannot afford GPS. In fact I still have a flip phone and it’s plenty smart enough for me.

Going to reload the pipe.
Then I am going to imagine you naked and spewing poetry and other juices from your most trusted of orifices.
We’re chatting on FB and I just asked you if you were shaved. I know you will either say no comment or stonewall me as you have a habit of doing. Trust me I understand how awful it is wrestling with guilt. I also know we’re skating on thin ice and that global warming should be scaring us into real action.

Charles Cicirella
7/2/2016

This struggle seems almost harder.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-05T13_19_39-07_00

The Madonna hears her son’s cries.
To live the way we choose.
To die the way we choose.
A privilege yes, but sadly not a right.

Preston is the real athlete.
The rest of us are bystanders if we’re lucky.
I don’t want to hear what part God’s supposedly playing.
I’m not sure what I believe and if pressed on the matter I may just acquiesce. 

The struggle is definitely harder.
Even the aftermath fails in stature.
Serving a life sentence and all he did was forget to put his seatbelt back on.
The Madonna tends to her son’s wounded chakras.

Preston is the miracle.
There are no saints or sinners just survivors and evil do-gooders.
I’m not interested in any explanation Our Father may wish to proffer.
I’m starting to believe The Big Bang happened the second God’s back was turned.

Charles Cicirella
7/5/15

Madonna and Child, Eternal Spring and Eve

If I tell you I love you it’s because I can hardly contain myself. If I tell you I want you it’s because the words formed on my lips and I don’t know what else to do with them. If I write poems for you it’s because you inspire me like no other and I cannot shake your brain power or your sculpted sexuality. My middle name is sweet chaos so please don’t go worrying yourself over the many speedbumps we’re sure to encounter. You are the Logan Sapphire cut from a crystal mined in Sri Lanka. And I am a rare 'pigeon-blood' ruby mined from fairy tale and unguarded promises. Poetry is our bond and our cornerstone, my love.

Charles Cicirella
7/3/15

Poetry is My Protection

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-03T13_11_24-07_00

Her words not mine.
She reminded me that I know how to write in both blood and stardust.
My words not hers.

I’m a pushy son of a bitch.
I’m hard to love.
I don’t trust love. Not one bit.

You appeared out of the clear blue sky.
I find myself smiling more than I’ve ever smiled before.
Poetry is how and where I lower my guard.

Poetry is my protection. Her words not mine.
You bring me around to other ways of thinking and spinning. My words not hers.
The mold was broken when I was born. “On the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true.”*

Charles Cicirella
6/27/15

* "(They Long to Be) Close to You" is a popular song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

None of the Pieces Seem to Fit

(For Darin Bulai)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-28T20_12_42-07_00

I don’t know how to make sense of anything.
Every day things slip away.
I don’t even know what those things are and why I cared about them in the first place.
I reach out and it doesn’t do much good.
I come off angry, broken and resentful of everyone and everything.

Sometimes I wish I still drove so I could drive a car through the car wash.
I remember coming through the other side and everything being clean and feeling new.
I wonder if when we die if it will feel like that when we come through the other side. Like all of the grime, guilt and rage has been washed away and we’re transformed with a fresh sense of purpose.
Sometimes I wish I could drive off the edge of the world. Never looking back at all of the damage I have caused and all of the love I never could quite get a handle on.

I don’t know how to make sense of any of it. Including the fucking trees and all of the shadowy indifference we settle for like spinach on our plate to go along with the crow.
Every night things are just out of reach.
I don’t even know if it matters anymore and why I spend any time at all wishing we were closer and had had some discussions making us better and more tolerant people.
I do not see the sense in buying a firearm and hunting animals for sport.
I cannot seem to get any of these pieces to fit. As poets go I’m a so-so handyman and a terrific pain in the ass.

Charles Cicirella
6/28/15

When will the poetry come?

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-27T23_11_53-07_00

Part 1.

Unlike flash paper.
We are not writing illusion.
Your poetic imagery is universal.

A shiver of sharks.
They smell blood.
You are impervious to their lasting impressions.

We began as strangers.
Poetry helped us to become familiar.
Pinup girl wordsmith.

I am a jackal.
And I still give myself too much credit.
My zeppelin is ego-driven.

Part 2.

Like the National Debt.
I’m over my head.
Your poetic countenance is irresistible.

A splatter of paint.
The painter bleeds.
I am indisposed to antique antiquities.

Start your engines.
Poetry gushes from your every pore.
Somethings are worth waiting for.

Part 3.

Like Cleopatra.
You are turning heads.
Your horse drawn carriage will lift off at any moment.

Charles Cicirella
6/28/15

You make me blush and you'd better use haiku kisses in a poem.

I hit the pipe.
I slapped your ass.
I covered you with haiku kisses.

We begin as absolute beginners.
No sin to slow us down.
Nothing but wide open spaces and you in a fever dream furiously scribbling down your poetic litanies celebrating Christ the Redeemer. As I wrestle with my martyr complexes and drown myself in fits of spastic self-indulgent joy.
We must swallow our feelings because we’re not free. We are also not victims. We are still here. We’ve always existed. We survive as you decay.
Honey trickles from your almond sockets and I have never been this rock hard before.

I wrapped the pipe in aluminum foil before stashing away.
I slipped out of bed so I could watch you sleep as a solitary being.
There is nothing sexier than you embarking on your next Silk Road voyage.
You covered me with exclamation points and each one hit its mark.

Charles Cicirella
6/26/15

Prime Real Estate

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-24T12_19_46-07_00

I can’t stop thinking about your 38c’s. I know that’s bad of me, but I’m a naughty boy who must repent.
You wrap me around your littlest finger like a piece of blue string and I’m feeling patriotic and I feel like going to the library and reading about Camp David.
Something about your firebrand DNA  that resisted all chemical reactions until we  happened to meet and created something more lethal than gunpowder and more prolific than Jack Kerouac on a tear.
 
Prime real estate and curb appeal are two very different things. Keep this in mind the next time you’re reading to a bunch of dog paddlers who fear for their very souls when challenged by the real thing and I’m not talking about Coca-Cola.
Your poetry rocks my world and I know how cliché that sounds, but I swear when experiencing your voice ebbing and flowing like the waves on the cause and effect sea it’s like I’ve never been born and am 10,000 years old simultaneously.

You are rock and roll and I just wanted to tell you how much I admire the way you create the most inescapable and supple of cloud-tattoos with your operatic word symphonies.
I can’t stop thinking about your universal mind. I know that’s awfully high minded of me, but I am an intellectually curious human being who never stops to think about the consequences.
Something about, everything about you. “As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.”

Charles Cicirella
6/24/15

I drove a friend of mine away today.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-23T14_53_16-07_00

I drove a friend of mine away today.
This isn’t the first time and sadly it will probably not be the last.
Sometimes I will not let go of things and I pick apart every word written and every gesture made.
I refuse to give an inch and systematically push, shove and kick the person until the only thing they can do is flee.

I am not proud of this behavior.
I know I must find some way to free myself from this den of vipers that feeds on my insecurities and strikes the second I let my guard down.
I have only myself to blame and will not make excuses for these deplorable traits.
Oddly this has become more of a confession than a poem.

I drove a friend of mine away today.
I hope I have not done too much damage because her fire glow is something I will miss like I miss riding my bicycle to the library as a kid.
I had just gotten back from Columbus and I remember getting onto FB and there she was.

Charles Cicirella
6/23/15

With All of Your Freckled Being

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-21T20_47_29-07_00

I will stop kissing your thighs for one moment so I can type this first line.
I love how you taste like an orange creamsicle.
They don’t taste the same as they did when we were kids and isn’t that true about too many things.

I will stop biting down hard on your nipples for a second so I can gather my thoughts and then dispense with them like three coins in a fountain.
I love how you remind me of black licorice.
I wish candy and ice-cream were still being created for adults. I miss pints of Ben and Jerry’s White Russian ice-cream and Powerhouse candy bars that even gave Snickers a run for their money.

I love when you told me your freckles were everywhere. It left nothing to my imagination while opening up endless possibilities for places my tongue can endlessly wander to and fro.
We bring the best parts of ourselves front and center and that can never be a bad thing no matter your marital status or my inability to make nice with someone for any extended period of time.
Your come hither looks drive me right over the White Cliffs of Dover and I’d prefer it if while making up your mind you continued to speak to me through your unremitting poetry that always keeps me coming back for more.

Charles Eric Cicirella
6/21/15

I spoke to Darin Bulai on the phone.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-21T19_14_06-07_00

I spoke to Darin Bulai on the phone and it’s the first time in a long time that I found someone finishing my sentences and it filled me with hope that creative collisions can still very much exist in this land of the enslaved and home of the cowardly.
I spoke to Darin Bulai on the phone and there were a number of times we interrupted each another, but it was okay because I knew we were both just so overjoyed to be holding a conversation that actually got our juices flowing and didn’t have us feeling like it was time to swallow the barrel of a gun and splatter our brains on the eggshell colored walls.
I spoke to Darin Bulai on the phone and discovered that it’s true if you build it they will come and they’ll bring good ideas and food and drink so no one goes hungry or is thirsty as the sustenance from our minds' eye leaks out and we drown in each other’s creative highs and lows.

I do not have a clue if either one of us can indeed write, but I do not believe that is the point.
He spoke of affectation and I immediately understood where he was coming from and that he is the most unaffected human being I’ve ever come into contact with.
And so what if neither one of us is working and what’s it to you if we’re both living with a parent and doing our best to stay hidden in plain view because the alternatives are less sexy and filled to the brim with unwarranted social convention and recovery scenarios that do not fit the bill.

I found the blueprints in my back pocket along with my cell phone that is probably giving me rectal cancer and some lint left over from 1972.
I found you on FB of all places amid so much endless chatter and inane postings I could give a shit less about. Your writing stung me like a yellow jacket as I rushed myself to the ER and confessed to anyone who would listen that I’m allergic to the beautiful people and all of their egregious trappings and trapdoor ridicule.
The sound of the creaking weathervane woke me up from a relatively sound forty winks as I sit here on the floor, bent over the keys knowing we’ll find our place in the stars once we stop looking for our breaks and accept we’ve already arrived.

Charles Eric Cicirella
6/21/15

I believe it’s time we saw each other naked.

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-21T13_49_45-07_00

Come here.
I need to lower my guard and leave it down for a really long time.
I want to feel your body pressed against mine as Brautigan’s words slide down the bannister into our hungry and unshielded hearts.

Come here.
My mind is made up it’s time I hightailed it to Maryland and met you outside in the tall grass where we can hide from everyone except each other as it should be.
When I think of you new lines of poetry come into my head and I know it’s the same for you.

I just grabbed my nose and it reminded me of when I was a child and my grandfather would grab my nose and make quarters come out of it.
We’re all magicians in our own way making the things in our lives that we cannot comprehend disappear.
Denial has become a trusted ally as I do my very best to accept the isolation as an opportunity to actually do something with my life and this creativity as a hammer smashing through all the white noise.

Come here.
It’s time we grabbed hold of each other and stopped pretending we don’t feel injured when things don’t go our way and there’s nothing we can do about it.
I need to feel more than just your intellectual prowess as your mouth opens upon mine and our inner children share the same swing and we walk naked through Death Valley with the hot sun beating down on our poetic flesh.

Charles Cicirella
6/20/15

Heavy Lifting

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-20T12_49_36-07_00

Pick up your heart from the floor.
It’s time you learned to read the writing on the wall.
It’s time we started to heal our insatiable wounds.

Nine lives were lost in that church.
Nine lives that will never breathe another breath.
It’s not enough to express our sympathy. It’s not hardly enough saying we’re sorry for your loss.

When did we stop doing the heavy lifting?
When did we give the people with no brains in their head a free pass to blow up our world with their fear and their hatred and their ignorance?
America the beautiful must again find its place in the sun and stop accepting mediocre as a job well done.

Pick up your brains from the stone cold floor.
Some people don’t get a second chance and fairy tales only tell half the story.
Politics as usual is no longer an acceptable defense. We know damn well what the right thing is to do and we better start asking ourselves immediately why we’re not doing it.

Charles Cicirella
6/20/15

Creaky Bones

Choking on a fingernail for the past couple of hours.
As I stirred sugar into my coffee this morning I started to think about my creaky bones.
I’m tired of how some people bring God into everything. Like it or not though God is right there with us every step of the way and thankfully there is nothing that can be done about that.

Lou Donaldson’s “Autumn Nocturne” is playing and even though it’s only June this music perfectly fits my mood and carries me through the Chariots of Fire thunderstorms I’m currently experiencing.
Ian and Sylvia is up next and that’s sure to put me in an entirely different frame of mind.
My creaky bones are ready to cut a rug even though I have next to no rhythm and look more like the gopher from Caddyshack than Fred Astaire when I "Shake a Tail Feather.”

I would like to continue where we left off, but have this uncomfortable feeling that you were never really all that into me and would prefer to cut your losses before our relationship becomes a knife fight that no one walks away from.
Domestic abuse is never sexy especially when the police get involved and someone gets led away in handcuffs
At any moment my creaky bones might just stage an uprising and before you know it I’ll vanish like some aging puff of smoke that had no business being here in the first place.

Charles Cicirella
6/18/15

Frame of Mood

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-16T20_50_28-07_00

I’m not writing this poem out of desperation.
I’m not writing this poem out of loneliness or contempt.
I cannot believe we found each other.
I’m at a loss for words as my frame of mood is unframed by your passionate whispered longings.

Move over I want to sit next to you on the park bench.
Move over I want to feel your warmth as we feed the pigeons and forget we’ve not eaten since before Christ was a Prophet never a pretender.
I believe it’s time we give these shallow celebrity poets a run for their blue money by delivering unto them the unleavened creativity of a people chosen to do the work because the work was worn-out from being left half done and half baked.
Move over I want to stand with you alongside the burning bush leaving nothing any longer to chance as we break the speed of sound by simply opening our eyes to the next new sunrise.

I’m not writing this poem because I have anything to say.
I’m not writing this poem out of a sense of duty or a feeling that someone needs to break open the silences with profound insights or riveting reveals.
I’m just tired of everyone, including myself, skirting the issues and understand there is much more work to be done before a reckoning can arrive and a people are delivered to the Promise Land
You were walking your dog when you called.  As we talked I imagined your hands all over my body making me feel like I wasn’t a filthy, smelly human being, but was instead a blossoming flower with so much promise and so much still to look forward to.

Charles Cicirella
6/16/15

Our Craven Inability to Believe In Ourselves

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-12T14_26_52-07_00

She has no reason to worry because I’m not going anyplace.
I still want her in big and small ways. Nothing has changed. I just sometimes need a break from staring at the computer’s frozen face.
And it’s incredible how we both jump to the same troubling conclusions because we’re not used to anyone really being into us and going the extra mile for us.
I want to put my arms around her like the sun and quiet her worries that I’ve found someone else to smear my words all over like sunscreen or whipped cream.

The words pour from me like a fire hydrant in Brooklyn in the 1970’s. This was when the prostitute was New York's state bird and you could pick up any drug on any corner for a relatively low price.
This was way before political correctness bit us in the ass and the Christian right took us hostage with their narrow minded views on everything and anything under the sun. I want to live my life on my own terms and not have to always worry about the next shoe to drop especially when I’ve been going barefoot since before the serpent penetrated Eve for the final time.
Make way I’m coming and I’m bringing buttery popcorn and ice-cream and chocolate and all of those things you love to nosh on but can’t because of your diet.

She doesn’t have to worry about me leaving the building because I’ve been a shut-in  since before I can even remember. Solitary confinement means nothing to me not since discovering how vast a kingdom my mind is.
And it’s truly amazing how we both suffer from low self-esteem. It makes sense though when physical intimacy is something neither one of us has experienced in more than a coon’s age. And we’re both getting older. And we’re both getting wiser. And we’re both getting lonelier.
I want her to put both her arms around me like I am the moon and this nursery rhyme will come to fruition once we let go of all those pesky voices in our butterfly hearts and cement block heads.

Charles Cicirella
6/12/15

Niagara Falls

(For Dan Klute)

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-12T13_27_24-07_00

I drink so very little water I’m pissing caffeine.
I promised in another recent poem I’d cease and desist from writing about my bodily functions and yet here I go again.
My friend Dan understands and that is why I’m dedicating this poem to him.

Water and I do not get along which is totally crazy when the average adult human body is 50-65% water.
Here’s another bizzaro fact. I am a water sign and yet do not know how to swim. In fact to be perfectly honest I’m afraid of water especially the deep end.
Sometimes when we’re hanging out I think it would be easier climbing into a barrel and getting pushed over Niagara Falls. Neither one of us is a walk in the park and that’s putting it mildly, but it’s also a key component to why, I believe, it is we both keep coming back for more.

I drink so very little water the sweat pouring from my glands is comprised of mostly Coca-Cola.
I understand California is experiencing an epic drought to which I can completely relate to. Their golf courses though are still green because recreation always seems to take precedent over salvation no matter how poorly you slice the ball into the burning woods.
My friend Dan gets what I’m saying and drinks a glass of water every chance he gets. He’s as smart as a whip and delivers the genuine goods without batting an eye. Me I’m still as dry as a bone and wish somebody I loved would hold me under the water just for the sake of getting wet and saving myself from dry rot.

Charles Cicirella
6/11/15

Poetessa II

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-10T22_23_15-07_00

You make my intellect hard with your wind chime wordage and passionate declarations of unwavering interdependence.
I was frozen in space when you appeared out of the motel-vacancy-cold. I discover myself thawing out and open to new trains of unregulated thought and being.
My loins ache for you as I consume your poetry from the inside out and the outside in. I’m a better person for it. And I’m a better poet for it too.

I am a feral poet. No fan of academia and never very adept at fitting in. I find my words in the roadkill at the side of the road. I’m not afraid of picking up a dead animal with my bare hands and turning it into something beautiful with my stark-naked brain.
Jim Murray sprang the word intellect on me when I was just a pup. I’m still running away from his left handed compliments and doing my best to make some sense out of his blood on the tracks heroic paranoia.
I cannot wait till you allow your freak flag to fly. Cannot wait till you realize just how much talent you possess and stop making excuses for everyone else’s shortcomings.
Oftentimes breaking bad is the only direction left to head. I believe you must soon get in touch with the superhero existing deep inside of you.

You make things easier with every message I receive from you.
I am so sick and tired of not living up to my full potential, but when talking to you I know anything is possible and that we’re all bound for glory!
There is nothing sexier than talking about books and I absolutely love how you understand that and keep playing off my most obvious and obnoxious of flirtations.
I want for us to read to each other in a well lit room where no one and nothing will disturb us. I cannot wait to spread my cadence onto a cracker and feed it to you like a baby bird.

Charles Cicirella
6/10/15

THAT

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-09T10_14_46-07_00

Her poetry.
Brings me. Through.
A heatwave.
On my intellect’s inner nature.
From across the universe.
The temerity of her words.
A sonic boom.
A Savior’s healing wounds.
Isolated dead weight.
On the borders of hungry love.
For you.

Charles Eric Cicirella
6/9/15