Tag: poems by chris leibow

traveling through falling snow

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traveling through falling snow,
the same snow making her cheeks wet,

what rapture

“Blue” a video poem by Chris Leibow

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for Brooke Marie

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about ““Blue” a video poem by Chris Leibow“, posted with vodpod

 

American Haiku & Senryu

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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

Variations on a Theme

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simply holding each other;
making love
breath on neck

simply holding each other;
making love
hidden spring

simply holding each other;
making love
moonlit sea

simply holding each other;
making love
howling wind

simply holding each other;
making love
net of stars

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This poem was written when thinking about how its possible to make love without the act of intercourse, that the intimacy of sexuallity can be shared simply by holding each other and being present with our lover and that this gesture, this expression can be more meaningful and heartfelt than “making love”

This intimacy takes place in a context and the variations on this haiku are an attempt to look at them in different contexts.

a meditation on love.

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At times love feels like a demolition but in reality it is a beautiful renovation[1], if you are willing to let it be. It’s not love, but our responses to love that makes us giddy or suffer, it’s our myriad of projections of what is right and what is wrong, what should be and what should not be, how long it should last. But that is not love itself that is us. Love is simply a beautiful brilliant light from the other world, life seeking life, beauty seeking beauty it God’s first essence, “I love”[2] that fills everything, and it is up to us to make the beautiful shadow play with that light by being fearless and seeing “the other”[3] not as we would have them but as they are, and by being ok when the curtain falls. Or we can take that light and make a frightening shadow play by being fearful, and by strutting and fretting and weeping because eventually the curtain will go down.

No matter what, the curtain will always come down; in month, in a year in 10. At the end of our lives, the curtain always comes down. We can’t escape that. The question is then, when the curtain comes down, do we applaud with eyes filled with tears at the beauty of it all or do we complain that our seats were uncomfortable or that our role was too insignificant. Ultimately it is up to us.

We must always remember that love is the light and not the shadow. Dance in the light, The light! The light! Dance!

Thank God for love,
Namu amida butsu.

1. Rumi
2. Li Young Lee. “The Virtues of a Boring Husband.”
3. Rilke

day after a break up

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the day after heartbreak –
I still imitate the Easter bunny
for a little boy –

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this haiku was written this morning, for my friends little boy  Joseph,  I just had broken up with my lover the day before,  In a strange way it made the heartache that much more,  ” The world is so beautiful, because its difficult.”