words by dominic riccitello

Jul 10, 2014

oblivion

floating the mediterranean, i dream into oblivion
i’ll call you baby and you’ll call me salvation
hovering heaven and the hidden venom
your presence is the essence of the great depression

you kill with eyes and your crimes are disguised
but i take the children’s ritalin and hide from your seduction
i beg and i plead for someone to compress my aggression
for someone to give me life with their eyes because i’ve tried and i’ve died, but i rise and i try and it’s deep and intertwined

i might chastise, but i get by – i roll snake eyes and live by surprise
too wise to become defeated by a guy with no outlook on life
while your life is comprised by cries and oversized lies
i can die – i love to die just like i lust for blue skies on hot summer days

the ways and the haze and the way you daze
i get lost and enthralled and crawl to your beck and call
they’re appalled by how revolved my warmth conforms
how i live in a self-inflected storm of the absolute worst

but i float and hope one day my vision will deter
that the liquor i call oblivion will lessen and his essence will disintegrate
that the hands that i thought held my fate will let me see straight
when there’ll be no weight and the wait was just a state of emotional self-hate

but more importantly, the day i’ll dance to the tune of chance and how i’ll no longer hold the hand of some old broken down romance
Jul 9, 2014

asleep

there’s something lovely about the way three am calls your name
how my therapist knows your game and all those words you played
but i sway, i speak your name — i don’t know afraid
lean back and relax as i bask in the thought of killing an ex

they say i might be insane, but it’s not because i laugh at pain
or the way i say your name in utter disdain
i can play the game, i can reign
i can drink your blood and bathe in your veins

they say it’s all in vain
how i kick back and relax in the thought of how many i’ve slain
i’m not insane, they’re all just mundane
it’s not my fault i like to kiss and then whisk their brain

i laugh — if only one day i forgot the cause of my distraught
possibly then i’d live without a cause, the hovering bomb would be lost
all the ghosts i’ve caused would no longer taunt and haunt
maybe then i could sit on a yacht, rot my skin and bleach my brain
kiss a shark and bask in the day when the words they spoke never caused pain

but that’s all a hypothesis and maybe i just like the dominance
the way they scream my name
how prominent their bones become when i squeeze their waist
the way their eyes taste when they die
especially that tough guy that started to cry

but then i awake and realize it was all just a dream
and the way they screamed through their teeth was just a theme
you might know my name, but you don’t know my flame
and you certainly don’t know my game the day i truly awake
Jul 8, 2014

the pizza that never happened

fingers against my lips, your touch and chills
don’t speak — i feel words beginning to slip
i’m not glib, i’m not something you can hit and quit
but for some reason i still write to the tune of you

they say some poems are better left unread
that some thoughts are better left unsaid
you could cut off my head, lie my body in the bed of an old pickup
but you’ll never kill my spirit or take my words

here, forever and always
roaming hallways, writing stories about empty doorways
the awkward and all the holidays
back to florida, august and coffee
the way the water crept upon me

i still taste your lips, your breath and the thoughts unsaid
how we never baked that pizza, the sauce and how i sat at loss
my thoughts shoot across, you know i’d never double cross
that i’d hold your hand through cancer and even if i never had the right answer
you know i’m always here, forever and after

i realize every factor and know this life’s just another chapter
i believe somewhere, sometime — maybe in madagascar
it’ll register why and who knows, maybe a few seconds later i’ll die
but my eyes will see the light, they’ll understand right and wrong
i’ll comprehend the song, but more importantly why i loved you all along
Jul 7, 2014

i know who killed me

hiding from the light, my body curves with the dark
lips against the ground, i haven’t had enough
the rush of it all, make it rough
touch my face, lick my eyes, give me your thoughts
i want everything you got

looking from above, i can’t wake up
they discuss — i tell ‘em to shut up, but they can’t hear
i’m here, floating and waving my gun
i yell, but why won’t they run?

pull the trigger, but the gun’s a dud
where the fuck’s my fun?
i haven’t had enough, i haven’t had my fun
wake up, but i can’t hear

paramedics arrive, this time my knife
i stab and i strike, but it doesn’t even tap
i thrust, but it turns to dust
i’ll never have enough, i’ll never corrupt
i’ll always live in disgust of what once was
that i never got to crush the jaws of something so plush

i love, but it’s never faux and my door, it never knocked
life’s a struggle, but i never haggled
i told myself to waddle, to paddle, to never crumble or gravel
especially for something or someone that lives with an unnerving battle for flipping the channel

but it’s alright, i had my highs, my lows and many nights
never sat with fright, but i had my white and my black
forever my light and my sad, but i stop and realize
i’d like to exit this life without the mad and hopefully enter my next
without the bad and without a shoulder pad

this goes for show that although i know who killed me
i’ll never let them take everything away from me
and that they’ll never have the dying love that made me, me

you might be the bee and i might be the honey
you can take all that you have from me
but sadly you’ll never actually have me
as i float with the sea and realize i finally found the key
Jul 6, 2014

a beautiful problem

i realize my problem—
a hum in the background
my attention becomes lost as i try to clear the frost
the cause, i’m just so full of exhaust

once upon a time i asked god
but soon realized he was a fraud
i bawled, crawled and asked for more
i certainly could love a whore

but i stand at the door
wonder once more
look in the mirror
and realize my mind escaped through pours

my soul becomes vapor
beauty comes in many forms
dapper is norm, but i lust for eyes that storm
bodies that feel warm

and i realize that my problem is that i love the fallen
but more importantly, i love others more than i love myself
and farewell as much as i love the down and mellow
Jul 6, 2014

Great blog! What is your mindset for writing? Are you more free verse? Who are your influences?

thank you – i write about people, motions and emotions. not really free verse, i like the feeling of being able to rhyme my lines and/or play off each line.

i actually can’t name a single poet – don’t have any influences.
Jul 5, 2014

questioning myself

words crumble — i don’t know what to say
i love and i lust, but i promise it was—
every aspect: your handles, the way your body curved
life is abstract with occasional magic
things happen, we run with or from madness
plastic over our head as we stumble through traffic

the memories play, but i wish they weren’t so graphic
you and your ikea bed
how you loved your handles of vodka
liked i loved grabbing your handles in bed

i slept by meds, from alcohol but only to awake and weep
but knees can only hold so much and your life as a sheep begins to wear
from time to time, a hand in my pocket
i look at the sky, but i would never

it seems we hover over memories and coincidences
because we’re innocent we forget life is full of incidences and madness
life can take in an instant
but my last question: will i let the littlest?
Jul 4, 2014

a loyal hand, but no job

somewhere in peru
the clouds cover our view
forever and always you
he offered a hundred and fifty grand, but i gave him the hand—

just us two and a romp through the swamp
we never knew the word “stop”
always on a single foot, through the woods we bask
an endless gaze, eye to eye with a game of who could catch the spy

we lie, roll and examine the holes
how i could never fly
the way you expressed and used the word “my”
i could die, is anyone in there alive?
a robot with the sex drive of an adolescent

i bask, but alone — i promise i’m not prone
it’s alright — my bones are intact
i know and i always knew
a sight to see, the luxury of the unknown

a few have asked, but i sip my flask
you know i’d take an ax to the hand
to the head and end up dead
before the day i’d ever lift your mask
Jul 3, 2014

july 3, 2014

shutting the cupboard, i realize the day
july third, you know i’ll never forget
i wish i remembered the restaurant like i remember your face
like every sentence said and every current through my head

a time of glory and pain and tears of tar black rain
i light my candle, reflect on the past and just ask, please not again
my last fuck — out the plane window going a few hundred
how i tossed and turned and ran through thunder

you could hold me under
but you always knew i’d drown without a frown
your face, a laugh and nothing more
now i’m standing outside the liquor store door
all fours — throwing up once more

back in the day
when i realized kodak rhymed with poem
could i write with photos?
i scroll through my phone, but realize there are none
your face had already been stained in my brain

always played with hopes and i’ll never forget words
how we grew up a mile apart, yet ended up in the same town
the way you left that night and still ended up in my arms
how we even drove the same car
the way we came back again, same place and the same day
only a year apart… the way you were standing at the bar

but lunch, how you spoke your words
how you said you knew i would’ve driven anywhere
that you knew i always cared and how i always stood there
but what was sad is how we both agreed that not now, but in time
maybe then will be a good time
that maybe then we’ll both use the word “mine”
Jul 3, 2014

throw down your shield

i can donate you tears, fears
i’m standing here, waiting endlessly
my life here and next, past and present
honey, don’t move so fast — let life grasp

feel beneath, let your wings flap
things sting and kings reign
i know it’s nothing like the acid rain
just stop, feel today and let your emotions play

i’ve seen you unplug, feel you chug
all those drugs—
you let your shoulders shrug, but no one else can see

the day you’re looking up, through that old oak tree
wondering whether you gave it all you got
think about what you had and what you lost
what you gave up and what you cost

but don’t let it bother because then isn’t now
just vow from here on out that you’ll keep plugged
that you’ll no longer shrug and when you hug
promise it’ll mean something other than i’m sorry
and all your worries will no longer battle an army
but lastly, that your next motion will teach you emotions and you’ll be a squid with the ocean
like i said back on june 25th