Salarium

You have paid
me in salt for love

From the sea I take
More to preserve my

Heart, my heart cured by love –
Like brine softening olives —takes
That which is incapable
Of being obtained and
Changes it.

The salt in my sweat
Now on my tounge
Reminds me —She
Loved me once

The salt

Stealing
The water from
My eyes.

Burns.

Copyright c.a. leibow 2006

Love has its own agenda.
After Arthur Sze

An old man carrying flowers across the street
Is hushed forever.

A cracked window is shut, letting
A red throated sparrow back into the sky.

I see man turn a corner running from a woman
— Unable to recognize his lover any more.

See a man sitting in a park wrapping
Barbed wire around his chest.

Dark bouquets hanging from the trees.

I see a photograph of a smiling couple –
It has been torn and taped together time
And time again.

I meet a woman, who was abandoned by
Her father but found another — wondering
If he’ll ever come home.

I know a man who studied anatomy
To find a way to replace his heart —
Inventing a pump without heat.

A philosopher argues that the fundamental
Difference between Night
And Day is the shade of fate.
Lovers struggling against
The cold hearts current.
Oblivious

copyright c.a. leibow 2006

Falling


Of what
could have

been I make
An empty bed

Of dark Roses —
Of falling. And I lie.

—Love is a Church.
No — Love is

A forced march
Toward that Last

Moment —

My whole life
Held in one final
gesture

— That becomes a hole Or
— The thirsty mouth of a Well
— Or the ashes of a charred dog

I lie in my bed
The night is still
As lover’s sleeping, Truly Love is a wound upon a wound.

I finally fall
Asleep to the yowling
Of a chained cat.


c.a. leibow Copyright 2006

AT SEA

I fall asleep with you and wake
Up in the middle of the night holding

A whale bone. The bedroom
Floor has turned into a blue black
Sea, where mermaids with
Sharp faces and angry

Mouths sing to me.
The song does not comfort

And the tune is off key.
I lie back down and

The same sea sinks into
My head. Where the bell of a bouy

Rings a strange clanging
Reminding me of your name.

So I listen hard, trying to find
You. The salt in my eyes making

It hard to hear. I fall back asleep dreaming
Of deep water, and the light above

Me fading.


Copyright c.a. leibow 2006

OH HER....

Her eyes are like the mouth of a gun
and its cold blue bang and I am wounded
and I bleed like a run over Dog.

and Her lips

Her lips are the quivering Meat
of a heart And I am ravenous. I wander
digging in knocked over trashcans.

and Her hands

Her hands are like the bite of Vise
Grips™ She clamps my mouth shut
And I am silent
And I am silent as she cuts me

and her body
.
Her body is like a shipwreck
run a ground. The tide teasing me
like the pulse of a lover. I am drowning
Slowly, Slowly like a fish on a bed

Of Blood red Coral
She swims away
from me her hair
like the wake
of shark, trailing behind her.

Copyright c.a. leibow 2006

untitled

The night punishes
Me for my longing.

This night; That has become
A book refusing to speak

Of anything except deserted
Buildings and empty treeless
Streets, where even mournful
Violins can’t weep.

This night abuses
Memory. Bruises
With its silence. — is a room

Without doors, is a room that
Speaks in gasping tones—
Reciting

An inventory
Of my missteps


Copyright 2006 c.a. leibow

THE THESPIAN
for Ali

I can’t do it anymore,
Being in love alone.
Because the sky weighs
Too much and the things
You want without me
Set my fields on fire.

Afraid — I told you that you were
Not in love with me anymore—
Your silence was my
Desolation —

So I left you and wandered
The courts looking for where
I lost you and angels of memory

Followed — pointing to moments that
Replay themselves on projectors — over
And over again. I call out your name

Down the same walkway I chased you.
“Alley Cat,” Hey, Alley Cat”

—That day I could have walked
away but didn’t .

The light from the projectors
Flicker like ghostly players on a
Stage and those watching clap
With glee —

While my fields are full
Of flames and rain is but a silly dream


Copyright 2006 c.a. leibow

REINING IN

What can I say?
But that the world

Has become heavier
My clothes don’t feel right

And my left hand is scribbling
A dark sobbing language

I don’t understand.
What can I say?

But that my heart
Is an angry horse

Snorting its resentment
At being ridden hard —

Away from home
Or the taste of home

Or the hope of home.—
That place where roses

Are bruised. Where the
Skin is tattooed by ropes.

Where I can’t even
wrestle sleep. What

can I say? That the reigns
are Tangled? My arms

Are weary? That I want
To let the horse run free?

What can I say to a world on fire?
Or to the little boy trembling
In my eyes — ?


Copyright 2006 c.a. leibow