Untitled

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-09-20T03_38_20-07_00

These are the words
Without malice
Without forethought

The poetry arrives or it doesn’t
Like a photo negative
Or a litmus test with no conscience

You gotta grease the wheels
In these Modern Times
Of refuse and reprimand

I was unprepared for her purgatory come-ons
They came at me like De Niro in Raging Bull
I love a good movie, but I’m no film auteur

These are the notes
Without complaint
Without hesitation

The poetry arrives on its own terms
Like a picture in your mind
Or a pop quiz you mustn’t prepare for

You gotta leave the driving to someone else
In these times of virus and vitriol
It’s all in the game when you’re infected on the Vegas strip

I wasn’t ready for the way he used the words so honorably
His voices came at me like an impassioned starling or La Charity on a tear
I love a good beatnik, but I’m no master thief.

Charles Cicirella
9/20/20

RBG

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-09-19T20_04_18-07_00

“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed.”

Lioness
Fierce advocate
Opera devotee

This must be a beginning
Cannot allow the hypocrites to grind us down anymore
Learn from our lionized mistakes and move on

When they broke into Jeopardy! I knew something was wrong
My friend Klute said he felt completely numb and I can relate
She was stardust and it’s getting that much harder to get back to the garden

We must find the steel in our spines to fight for our very lives
She hung on as long as she possibly could and it’s now our turn to give something back to her
It won’t be easy, but we must stop these bastards before they take all of the oxygen from the room, leaving us blue and rotting

A gangster in the truest sense of the word
RBG held our country in her arms and nearly got us over the finish line
We must learn from her example and never give up the fight no matter how dark it gets before the dawn.

Charles Cicirella
9/19/20

Residue (For Juliet Cook)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-09-18T14_21_38-07_00

She makes degradation sexy
That first line will annoy her
Though it’s intended as a compliment

Always keeps me on my toes
She’s as tightly wound as a serial yo-yo
Gets on your fingers like elbow grease

I watched her arrange her McNuggets
Always keeps you guessing with her sphinx ways
She’s second to none and one in a million

The residue from her brainstem drips onto the bare page
We’re all curious what will come out of her mouth next
The blood pudding flowing through her fishnet stockings keeps us all on high alert

This poem isn’t easy to write
Sometimes getting back up on the horse isn’t as simple as it sounds
Never forget tearing through the ghetto on that bicycle built for two

As artists we withstand the pressure of a society on life support
Put our poems in a drawer waiting for our big break or better drugs
I check on her from time to time and like it when I can make her laugh

She makes falling from grace not such a big ordeal
I’m sure she’s rolling her eyes, but she’ll never write me off because we’ve been friends for far too long
The trouble I stir up is all in good fun because I’ve always loved her and never wish any harm to come to her.

Charles Cicirella
9/17/20

 

Radical Individualism (For Jax)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-09-15T22_03_42-07_00

Haven’t been writing

Still the words haunt me

You’re my tolling bell

 

Swing low

Eat lots of vegetables

Sweet chariot

 

You’re a pistol

Carved out of the ether

No bullets necessary

 

We’re all radicals

Exhaling truth

Inhaling fever dreams

 

Haven’t been writing

God plays peek a boo

I roll over like a mutt

 

Charles Cicirella

9/16/20

In Front of the Keys (For Jax)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-08-30T14_44_13-07_00 

I don’t believe she’s almost 40

Yes, I know it’s just a number

Still I don’t believe it

The words arrive and baby I’m amazed

Amazed at how she’s free of stipend or stipulation

As we all do our best to survive and thrive during these radicalized times

In front of the keys that are old friends and yet continue to surprise as they infiltrate a doughnut shop simply because the cops need to get off their rumps, stop killing black people and start to actually protect and serve everyone

My fingers are sticky from glaze and haze and a look at all the daydreaming I do because it keeps me proactive and profit

I’d like a cuddle because something tells me your cuddles are the remedy for a civilization that stopped being civil long before the Monolith became all the rage and the purpose of advancing intelligent life became the key to unlock our black hearts

I don’t believe she’s almost 40

I don’t believe in lots of things

It’s just the way I roll as autumn arrives like a thief in the night to steal our breaths and replace our thoughts with nightmares of bad sci-fi and television pilots that blow up like the Hindenburg

There’s love and then there are those who only want to score

There’s art and then there are those who only want to make their mark

There’s hope and then there’s fear, which too many people deal in like lawyers, guns and money. Fuck everybody who doesn’t believe in God.

Charles Cicirella

8/30/20

Reaching Into Eternal Emptiness

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-08-24T16_50_03-07_00

Hitting the bottom is different for everybody

Sometimes it involves murder, other times just infidelity

Mel Brook wasn’t futzing around when he laid down the law

Reaching into eternal emptiness is like reaching for the last doughnut and only powdered sugar remains at the scene of this victimless crime

Maybe we expect too much or maybe we best stop eating the shit conservatives continue feeding us. Don’t ever buy the party line against progressives because until we actually move to the left we’re continuing to fail as a country and as an ideal

The melting pot is a ghost of its former self as the white scum rises to the top, leaving all the beautiful people at the bottom of the barrel

So what I’m a bottom feeder. What are you, but an exposed nerve whose own electricity has high-tailed it out of here leaving you in the crime noir dark

The shadows positively mock you with their Edward Scissorhands and Johnny Depp tequila eyes

Let’s get something straight I only signed up for the depravity, no one ever said I had to be an upstanding citizen

Today Donnie tweeted he believed he was leading in the polls which is categorically untrue like everything else that spews out of his baby manhole mouth

In his estimation the more he lies, the more these falsehoods permeate our social consciousness and he’s right because half the country was never all there to begin with and enjoys a good yell before putting down another of their kin

We’re in more than unstable times and people seem to fail to understand this either because of fear or simply because ignoring the problem has always done the trick in the past. Thing is sticking our heads in the sand is only making us more vulnerable as the post office becomes the next casualty in one man’s dismantling of our Democracy.

Charles Cicirella

8/23/20

Critique

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-08-19T15_10_16-07_00

I wonder what it will take for someone to comment on one of my poems.

There’s a group of poets here in Cleveland that I don’t get along with and I’ve had to accept that and move on, but what about all the other poets I’ve known since Columbus or even before that, where are all these people and why do I feel like I’m by myself and no one wants to invite me to their party or come to mine?

Yes, I’m feeling sorry for myself, but there is nothing wrong with that from time to time because branches have a tendency to break, especially when too much weight is placed on their outer limbs.

Critiques are a dime a dozen and those who burn hot are too often left out in the cold as the fires of forgetfulness chastise you for being too full of yourself.

Sometimes I want to crawl up inside my anal cavity and forget I ever signed up for this passion play, but then I remind myself doing the work is the only way to make it through and that this is even truer when the The Tokyo-Montana Express has your name on it.

He filled his gun with bullets and his belly with hamburgers then he checked out because checking in wasn’t getting him anywhere fast and only made him feel sadder and more alone.

I wonder what it will take for someone to pat me on the head and say good dog. Of course I don’t really want that kind of faint praise because bubbles like that always have a tendency to burst right at the most inopportune of moments.

Isn’t God nothing and no one and isn’t a crown chakra just another crown of thorns resisting pregnant pauses like Sophie’s Choice?

I waited in the darkhouse for the Creative Director and you because I knew I could fall into your arms when everything stopped making sense.

My poetry is the dark horse that will never win the Kentucky Derby and no, I don’t smile when I read my poetry or at any other time because when I was in elementary school and smiled one time for picture day my mother traumatized me by making fun of that frozen, vomitus grin.

I wonder if Jim was the last true counterpart I’ll ever experience up close and personal.

Our intensities joined forces and like a wrecking ball took no prisoners as we demolished expectations and exposed fear for the little twat that it is.

Charles Cicirella

8/19/20

Garden of Eden (For Jax)

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/charlespoet/episodes/2020-08-18T01_17_14-07_00
 

I start a poem or does a poem start me

I’m really not sure, but either way it’s all good

You’re like a library I’ll never check every book out of

Have you read Brautigan?

If not call me some night and I’ll read to you from “Watermelon Sugar” or “So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away”

It will change you as the words tear from the page like convulsions or abstract bullets

I was born in the Garden of Eden under some rock or up a tree

You were always there even before God made Eve and Adam from dust

The serpent was an afterthought and that’s why evil is always chasing its obnoxious tail

Let’s duck into this casino that has air conditioning and talk about our dreams and the nightmares that elude us right before waking up

I hold onto you like a bungee cord because I’m new to zip lining and all the adrenaline that goes into such an unbelievable waste of time

Never forget when I reached for the pomegranate and you gave me the stink eye because you knew the fall was just around the next unexamined corner

You start a song or does a song start you

Either way you have that dark rhythm in your Brownsville soul

You’re like a hardware store whose nuts and bolts have been baptized by Jesus himself

Have you ever looked up in the sky and read your prosperity in the clouds?

If not call me some day and I’ll tell you your fortune like I used to when I was Jaspar the telephone psychic

It may not amount to much, but it’ll be fun to lay out the tarot cards and show you a side of myself I haven’t visited in quite some time

You were born in the Garden of Eden in a flowing stream or in a dark cave

I was always there even before God introduced shame to these absolute beginners

The serpent didn’t know what hit him or her when the forbidden fruit was bitten into and it was anyone’s guess who would come out on top and what difference it would make anyhow.

Charles Cicirella

8/18/20