"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken" this ain't the reincarnation of Bob Dylan's whorehouse Vincent wasn’t a cowardly lion or lazy dock worker he was a seizure holding himself up against the 19th century sunlight the sun’s not yellow, it’s lactose intolerant and so are the prostitutes when you hand them part of your ear familiarly known as Sien she didn’t care what was coming to her she already knew how black it got, she had crows in her teeth wheat cut down by Vincent’s scythe paint brush as he stared into the sun blind, colors come thicker, which ones are our gods? even a caged painter can change the world when everything’s burning around him, there goes the starlight again flickering rings dreams of Saturn pummeled his memory like a pugilist from another century we resist in vain when pushing against the Second Industrial Revolution but it’s clear that Millet is waiting and he never lived on potatoes gleaning is not for the birds as the peasants do their damnedest to stay alive including praying, but those are deaf ears; did I mention I was bleeding? it’s alright ma, I’m only tracing the back breaking words of others more dedicated to lifting themselves out of squalor this thing got teeth, but the weeds got me and I want to stare at a wall and hope I remember all the cuts in pink elephants on parade stucco saints remind me of a lackadaisical time when suicide wasn’t a calling and the clock on the wall didn’t mock me like Churchill at a Golden Corral we occasionally stumble on truth out there in the colors, at least we might at least we might occasionally stumble on truth when we dance with the yellow sunflower ghosts in the midday of another inspired breakthrough ghosts burning in the white light of an interrupted brain, punctuation marks prodding us on to live a life dipped in the mirrors of God, it’s heartbeat throbbing inside the ear the same way a bullet ricochets for all to see as an unhealthy painter eats lead and hallucinates a cypress Christ death for the night now brother death death death Jason Baldinger/Charles Cicirella

neuron-u-moron they’re just poems, not reasons reasonable doubt plagues us like a lost cause misfiring engines, the pop pop of a gunshot/ backfire, everybody ducks broken bottles cracked over broken heads, broken words shooting blanks into blank cadavers, hurricanes, wait where is this going, I got my thumb in the wind the hitchhiker’s blank stare a postmortem on the selfishness of the bland, bigoted status quo drooling in their autumn sweaters, yellow leaves dying at their feet big feet the size of The Colossus of Rhodes and when I’m done being exhausted I promise to beat you over the kaleidoscope-head for reminding me I’m only human wrapped in stardust, petulant and self-important as fuck. A star artist that knew it was all bullshit and his shit smelled as rank as everyone else’s union suit, the stains were unbearable, but I guess things happen that way i’m rotting from the inside out, we’re all rotting from the inside out, watch me rot like a bologna sandwich jesus kept in the crypt before he rolled his cloud away he played the guitar like a house may land on him, at any second, if only he’d stop pacing back and forth like an expectant flower giving birth to an old, evil curmudgeon in a drool bib with a ring on his finger the size of the other side of ohio where they still teach the crucifixion as a bed time story to failing future capitalists they are just songs or chamber music for the inflexible, those incapable of bending even when the golden rule is shoved up their stinky assholes and sunshine has taken a holiday there are no sick days here, we drag ourselves green, ragged waiting on our pulse to stop queen jane sits on her tuffet abandoning all hope and aspiring to be all she can never possibly be which with her imagination may only be a needle in the camels eye lasting impressions last only as long as they’re willing to succumb to the daily grind of meandering mediocrity and ass-cancer-keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-politicking god, it’s always the ass cancer, ain’t it a bitch. but if it ain’t the ass it’s still the cancer jim shepard was not a shepherd, prophet or salesman, he was another exterminator eaten by big fucking bugs lost my determination, lost my will to thrill, everything went polka dotted, the fire within lost its concentration. it exploded, turned into poems and we know by now they are just poems not reasons reasonable doubt tore into me like an anti-Atticus-Finch who left his Gentleman's Agreement in his other slacks or was it chino’s, a man has to look good as he wallows deeper into some bland cream colored despair. blind love, blind luck, blind suffering misfires and blinds an audience of all seeing miscreants Jason Baldinger/Charles Cicirella 12/11/18

living in the ache of the morning living in the ache of the morning I think that is the title as I wake up and breakfast sizes me up an abattoir on plate or is it my mind? I wish to steal you away before the clock strikes twelve and america becomes the next concentration camp. my anxiety will always keep me from these feats of daring do, maybe you already know that from the voicemails you wore your famous blue raincoat like the most miserable weather in the whole wide world was upon you the sky was the same grey as yr face, this city has a light problem your chi always gave you away, you had no life to give and your corpse knew it this of course says nothing of my corpse, or the roses I spit when I speak thorns catch in my throat as Simon says and the walk down the green mile commences in a bullfight, ah that’s bullshit… I ain’t papa hemingway red splotches of blood run with the bulls in my rose tinted hangover visions blood visions, prosecco visions, there are ghosts in the ache of the morning rattle and hum in the pit’s throat kept intruders at bay and the natives restless in the tantrum of late stage capitalism, we’re broke, we’re broken, we bay at endless moons late stage elton john queen of england shock and awe mistress of mayhem a throaty bitch lays a twenty on the bar for the biggest glass of gin you ever saw, she drinks it one gulp, beautiful I ain’t papa hemingway, I ain’t even moms mabley, put that in your ripped stocking and smoke it motherfucker, cause I ain’t going anywhere unless you smoke me out with sage or feed me honeydew was in Chicago the first time I had a fried egg on my cheeseburger, it was lip smacking good as that night, as corpses, I knew it was ending, the rain and us, we were only seconds out swore on a pack of bibles I had in the trunk for target practice and got down on my hands and knees and prayed for a reality I no longer believed in, the product of hanging by a thumbscrew last rites are something I’ve always intended to hand back like a bad piece of fish or an explosive device with no sense of humor, same with the quarter that may get me across styx. Silent boatman or vulgar boatman, you be the judge pulled down her brown corduroys and at her behest fucked her in the ass. Still wondering if my best friend Tony fucked her in the ass the next night while I ate egg sandwiches and farted in front of the television lite beer means nothing when there’s a gun to your head and your doppelganger is a member of the NRA poutine with extra gravy and suicide squads, this is life lived in fear of a moment my routine is a suicide squad, but I hardly take myself seriously enough to pick up the phone and dial 911. If you need help, if you need help, if you need help. What if I just need cocaine? just finished a poem called Preemie Blue and thinking J.B. is the only one who will get it just finished a bag of gummy worms that were medicated, now I am the hot worm the other side of the rainbow bites you every time, especially when the golden rule is up for grabs, so honor the blood feast boys and girls cause we are certainly doomed doomed to relive all the bad bits while a new normal sits on our psyches like a half-eaten corned beef sandwich on Jewish rye , hold the pickle or a memory, I got no arms left to wrap around anything – the last time I encircled your sun I believed I was on the cusp of greatness, since then I’ve come to tolerate my yellow bellied mediocrity that reeks of a wet mattress I keep at it all the same, fuck if I know why or fuck if I know why not last time I gave a fuck there was a red roof inn and a middle aged woman who really enjoyed sucking my dick or at least that’s what she said and I believed her the last time I committed suicide I became mary prevost’s dinner I had to look up who mary prevost is and I’m still not sure who she is or was warm oatmeal skin with no voice and hungry dachshund lost wiener dog amidst the sheets, your disadvantage savage, canine teeth human teeth, I got them all in a small bag round my neck, mementos outback alien dog chained up, it’s all in the game when you’re a croupier alain delon’s fedora blowing in the wind, I think it’s Tuesday the last time I copped a feel it was as much for kicks as for revenge this bar smells like onions fried in the end of time, wish the jukebox wasn’t dead Jason Baldinger / Charles Cicirella 1/31/19

Carving Station I carved the steak effortlessly blood pooling, essence pooling grease junkie, frothing at mouth burning in an overdose seizure Jason Baldinger / Charles Cicirella 2/5/2019

waiting on the big sleep pill waiting on the big sleep pill tantalizing novel approach chandler and kevorkian match made in heaven, match made in hell matchless in the dim, dark fires burning down my eyes blue tip blown out by a grizzly’s sour breath I’ve been playin’ spin the empty jim beam bottle wishin’ Rip Torn would come by and teach me Texas hold 'em wishin’ he hit Norman Mailer with a hammer once again gonna hit the pipe and think before I start to type and shit flows out of my fingers, I’m waiting on the words I sucked and sucked and all that came was a pearl necklace all over my face it was like it was 2016 all over again and no one got what they wanted until she jumped out of the cake then everyone got exactly what they desired; a broken heart, a nail file and a drunken memory that don’t fit in a box like a cat with no heartbeat or conscience or power of objective or rationale thought I was smoking a joint on the toilet, hoping peace might find me or at the very least something to calm my nerves while I call my dealer he does deliveries in a beater car with no tail lights, I slip him an extra $5 for bail money the pizza was cold so I turned the oven on and stuck my head inside I love my dates with Sylvia Plath, we listen to Peter Laughner together let’s change the speed of this poem, I prefer my poetry no slower than 78rpms Robert Johnson’s me and the devil burning like a sandpaper joint even a smoking baby can get lung cancer, even fidel castro plays for the pilots even a revolutionary beard can get lice infested with stars from one soiree or another the little cigarettes reek of phantom limbs mildew and wet lone ranger comics fishnets and crumpled up promissory notes I’ve been trying to buy lawn furniture since before Christ was born after the crucifixion I grabbed a tiki torch and burned the world down it was like playing grab ass with Christ he kept pretending he wasn’t interested, but I knew he couldn’t resist my muchachas for long Jason Baldinger/Charles Cicirella 3/22/19

Origami I burned the passports and fled faster than grease slicked hair in a texaco bathroom harry dean stanton called out to me like a patron saint from paris, texas he drove a white cadillac right off the lbj ranch, it had devil horns I lit myself on fire with her words and lack of an appropriate response when I wrote her name in hershey’s syrup atop my tin roof sundae ego It was like a jim thompson novel except some poor bastard won we’re all immigrants and our expectations have been punctured spare tires shredded, debris mowed over on capitalist highways garden gnomes hitchhiking to nowhere as Alaska burns chiseling glaciers from our children’s teeth as we fish for plastic landfill – landfill – landfill, our humanity recycled into extinction i wonder what don delilo would say to this, the overture of excesss the trail you believe you’re leaving, picked apart by scabrous winds and a burrito deluxe from a carl's jr, this is the death of taste i like the fetal position and all of the choices it remodels for me it makes me feel like a ryan home, or a plan of them burning down time to disinfect myself and while I'm at it change my bad attitude a little mister clean, a little draino in my viens, tis the season to be jolly and fabricate no more especially when the constitution is on fire death has always been legal on the poor motherfucker, now say yr prayers abortion is being outlawed because big brother is jack the fucking ripper Jason Baldinger/Charles Cicirella 5/23/19