watching the snow fall
a faint lullaby
from the other room
Category: chris leibow
spring gone.
kite leaning
against my window
falling snow
With his tongue
With his tongue out
the little boy
catching snowflakes
fresh snow
fresh snow
making snow angels
my 46th birthday
trying to quit smoking
trying to quit smoking
i give away
my second pack today
fresh flowers
flowers on the altar
a small boy touches
the buddha
incense smoke rises
autumn morning
first autumn morning
woodsmoke
above the temple
snow falls
snow falls
all night long
I walk
I dreamt
I dreamt I was an ax,
in the buddha’s hand,
glint of moonlight
the old prostitute
the old prostitute
filled with remorse
at my front door
tonight’s moon
tonight’s moon
showing off
two lover casting shadow
waist deep
waist deep
I call to her
from the dark
arguing
arguing
the buzzing street lamp
yellows their faces
inside the church
inside the church
the parishioners miss
the Robin’s sermon
Even for…
Even for the train
and it’s lonely conductor,
a rising moon.
an angel
an angel
finds a dead bird –
“we are of the same meaning.”
One Moon
One
moon
I stay you leave
haiku
drip, drip, drip
the slow melting winter’s library
row of icicles.
Morning Coffee
Flash Excerpts
Click the link below
autumn gale
housebound little girl
furiously blows soap bubbles
autumn gale
Babel
American Haiku & Senryu
About my Poems
These poems are haiku or senryu in a broad sense. They come close to the definition given by the Haiku Society America,
Haiku: a poem recording the essence of a moment keen perceived, in which nature is linked to human nature. Usually a haiku in English is written in three unrhymed lines of seventeen or fewer syllables.
Here is another explaination by Jack Keroauc:
“The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don’t think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again…bursting to pop. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.” Jack Kerouac
Free Verse Haiku had its begining at the turn of the century in Japa. A leading haiku reformist Ogiwara Seisensui[6]. Seisensui (1884-1976) could be regarded as the originator of the free-form haiku movement, though fellow writers Masaoka Shiki and Kawahigashi Hekigoto also deserve recognition.[7] Writers following the early-twentieth century movement known as free-form or free-style haiku (shinkeikō) composed haiku lacking both the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic rule and the requisite seasonal word (kigo).
Let the scholars debate. I will let you be the judge”
Reviews of In Praise of Small Things.
“Your poems are like lessons in loving. Perhaps they ought to be required for all would be ‘lovers’ Iin love or loving; if you are not then what fools your words make of us all, jealous fools we be of this love real or ideal.”
Buffalo47
“A haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorale”, wrote Jack Kerouac and that is exactly what c.a. leibow accomplishes with his refreshingly simple and accessible poems that jog the imagination. His poems are simple, sweet, and accomplish exactly what Kerouac theorized-paint a tiny picture in one’s psyche.”Hattie MacLeod, City Weekly, Salt Lake City
“Your work leaves me breathless, truly.”
Nicole Hyde
New Longer Poems
distant thunder
distant thunder
brings hope
midsummer heat
after the thunder
after the thunder’s rumble; a car alarm.
dust storm
dust storm
the wind shakes the tree
immovable Robin
summer playground
summer playground
some earthquakes
don’t like themselves
from a hill
from a hill I watch
the tall grass sway
but what of the dragonflies?
sandpipers
sandpipers
walking on the moon
low tide
in praise of small things 
