Eighteenth Poem (I could give a shit less what he’s building in there)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-03-12T20_31_10-07_00

Put down your hammers, nails and industrial piping

Pull out all the stops, the pregnant pauses adding to the suspense and exasperating the less patient in the audience.

I’m not here to hold your hand or tell you everything is going to be alright. In fact I know next to nothing when it comes to soothing the aggrieved or tamping down the fires of shock and outright disbelief.

We celebrate crucifixions like they’re going out of style.

We clamor around a martyrs’ feet like they’re the ones taking all the body blows when truth be told we’re all crying in this or that wilderness or suburban hellhole.

I thought he had all of his ducks in a row. Or that at the very least his cutting wit and well intentioned and funny as hell observations would get him through.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I couldn’t have read the situation more incapably and though I’m hardly to blame I still feel the fear of pitchforks raised when another monster is driven from the town square.

Should I have hung onto him at that last Bob show and never let him go?

Would that have saved him from buying a gun and taking his life in that parked car like in a Beatles song?

It’s not a question of where we went right or wrong. Leave that to the sportscasters and pundits to masturbate over when the alt. facts support nothing but another defiled king and his court of sycophants and white supremacists.
I cannot even think about what Jim would have made of what’s now going on. It hurts too much to think of his wry smile and that twinkle in his Peter Pan eyes.

Sometimes late at night I like to think I was his Tinkerbelle and that with a little magic fairy dust sprinkled into his beer I could have saved him from the fate every one of us will suffer, some with bullets others from the unforgiving hands of time.

Charles Cicirella

3/12/17

Fifteenth Poem (Grasping)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-03-04T20_37_12-08_00

Grasping at straws like revelatory words.

Camels in a manger.

The baby Jesus a figment of our fevered imaginations.

I imagine lying with her on a bed of straw.

Her Scottish accent wrapped around me like good tidings.

I asked to see a picture of her standing because I must know if we’d fit together and how far we must go before reaching the cloudless shore.

Grasping at stars like otherworldly worlds.

Three Wise Men in a manger.

The baby Jesus performed His first miracle before he even learned to sing.

I imagine sucking on her breasts like a calf suckling his mother’s teat.

There’s no shame in taking nourishment from our ancestors.

We must be brave when entering a dark room with only our third eyes to guide us.

Grasping at invisible signs like infinite numbers.

Mary and Joseph must have had some idea what they were ushering into this world.

The baby Jesus put away childish things and became a man before our storied eyes.

Charles Cicirella

3/4/17

Playing with Fire (For John Burroughs)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2017-02-26T15_45_09-08_00

Rarely if ever do we see eye to eye
Still I believe in him like I believe in the sky

He has his fan club and detractors as do I

"Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" like the Beatles did

He’s grieving now and my heart goes out to him

I mean that with not an ounce of false sentimentality

It’s the poets who keep us in check when everything’s out of balance and even the grocery clerks bring only death and destruction

I remember Brando bigger than life in Apocalypse Now and how Francis had to keep him on the straight and narrow when all Marlon wanted to do was kibitz

Let’s take to the streets like a pack of wild dingoes and show these evil do-nothings what civil disobedience really looks like when the people have had enough and high treason is on the table

Meryl had it so right when she spoke at The Golden Globes and I’d love to hear what she has to say tonight at The Academy Awards

You’ll never convince me that the only honest to goodness people live in flyover states especially when it’s only the bleeding heart liberals that seem to actually ever give a damn about their fellow man, woman and child

John and I need to start doing features together because we have a similar style that peels the pain off of every barn door from here to Poughkeepsie

Ego trips are not for the faint of heart

Neither are the true dark nights of the soul when your flashlight is out of juice and your headlights do a shit job of illuminating what lies within

Sometimes the best thing we can do is deny, deny, deny and when that doesn’t work facing the lion, tiger or bear head on will do the trick if you’re done playing games

I don’t have any advice as I find myself in the fetal position more often than not these days crying my eyes out for a humanity that refuses to any longer give itself the benefit of the doubt

Charles Cicirella

2/26/17