“I
   Was
     Broken
        To
        Protect you
            And you were broken to understand me”

“You're silly, you’re cute, you’re annoying”
“You don’t like me?”
“That’s not what I said,  I LIKE YOU”
Giggles and smiles.

-Watching Star Wars-

“Were you sad when Liam Neeson died?”
“That ******* died?”
“No in the movie silly”
As we talked about how he became one with the universe, force
I giggled until I was snorting.


You’re asleep.
You are laying next to me, you’re so beautifully masculine; your hair brushed against the pillow.
I love days with you, but at nighttime when the world is quiet, from your hair to your arms, your warmth, your heartbeat. I could lay here and say that every moment led me to that high, that need for your touch,
And for who you are, every breath I have in your presence is a breath not wasted.
You are my every heartbeat, you are my joy, you’re my peace and my light, darkness when you need to be, but with you I’ll always be safe, you will always be my home.

Blue eyes, I’m lost in.
Under your trance.
I’ll follow you anywhere,
Chills fill my body, can feel my heartbeat
Bound to you, wrapped around your finger
Forever yours, forever lost in your blue eyes.

The Lone Ranger writes a letter
to his Tanto, he writes,

things are not as they used to be.
I am as useless as an Iron Lung.

Riding around in his Ford Pinto
The Lone Ranger looks for anything
to do − the one working headlight
finding vultures on the side

of the road.
Driving through the night
scanning the radio for WXYZ

This long prairie night of his soul.
finding no one to save
he buys a *******
with a case of silver bullets.

She holds him like a little boy
Rocks him back and forth.

They don’t have ***.

He cries in her arms,

“I’m a man in a boy’s costume,”
“I am a jaw bone at a wedding.”

Later that evening
The Lone Ranger writes another letter

Dear Tanto,

Things are not as they used to be.
I am as useless as mouth without teeth.
I wish you were here.

Sincerely, Lone.

She buys a torn and faded map
All the continents are misshapen
The rivers smudged.Her faith is
inexhaustible. So here I am,
the bridge she will never cross.

The cataratic mapmaker rubbing his
eyes knowing only one route.

I stand on the other side
watch her put on a mask
so we will know exactly

how she feels, watch
her turn away
with map in hand

watch her
as she gets
smaller
and smaller.

I am on the otherside,
sitting on a chair,
in an empty room

in an abandoned house,
the windows have been boarded shut.

With my finger I erase
the ring of water
left behind by her glass.

It is true that I loved

her.  I am gaunt
and my ribs are showing.


copyright c.a. leibow 2007
Published in Rat Fink Review

caresses the guitar with his jelly fingers
he sings "y my love"


the rain is coming anyway
it's coming and lifting you up in the sky


chris rea sings "i don't sleep tonight"
"y my love"


i make love with  the sky,
you make love with the rain

chris rea plays the guitar
"there is nothing to fear"

I’m turning from Blanche DuBois into Chris Benoit
taking a streetcar named Desire to Monday Night Raw
after the oppression of the law got stuck in my craw
because the discretion of the flawed became the voice of God.

I’d always relied on the kindness of strangers
only to find the Million Dollar Man’s danger
directing the Army Rangers to Jesus’ manger
letting the Undertaker deal with the remainder.

I relinquished my rightful place
to the bank’s Crippler Crossface
taking everything until I lost grace
going into a holocaust craze.

I’m upset about the places I can’t go
because I’ll be ***** by Marlon Brando
when I ask the referee for a hand though
he just responds with a ****** no.

I have retired my display of Vivian Leigh
now Whatever by Our Lady Peace plays
as the Rabid Wolverine walks to the stage
to fight the Big Boss Man in a cage.

I gave up teaching class to my sister
to fight an *** who’s a mister
whose slaps can blister
so he blasts this spinster.

The law is a tougher opponent than Eddie Guerrero
so I apply my aptitude into becoming a pistolero
after getting jabbed by my French Quarter pharaohs
I can feel resistance down in my Marc Mero.

I start to take steroids
because there are boys
whose terror noise
impairs my poise.

I go all out performing flying headbutts
fighting until I see the dead’s guts
exterminating enemies like bed bugs
but then I start to dread hugs.

Now I assume a stranger’s spite
so I can immediately fight
I’m swallowed by night
wearing these tights.

In my rage I **** my wife and son
now my anger is no longer fun
even if it came from their gun
it’s me who’s the loneliest one.

I changed from a lady to a wrestler losing my ****** mind
fighting Mankind while stepping on landmines
until I can’t find any grand signs
and I’m anger defined.

The journeyman of sounds;
A welder of the pain.
From the land of abundant treasures
And alternative domains.
Dyed black mops.
A youth spent alone —
In a room full of darkness,
Save for your glowing tones.
Just another gutterball outsider,
But the star of the dejected.
Your poems sung of promise —
We ask: why were you not protected?
Roads “long and weary”;
You were just as lost as us.
I guess that’s why you were lifted:
To The Highway you were ******.
Now no more Black Holes,
Nor Seasons of “endless winters”.
And no more Curses —
Your side free from thorns and splinters.
Although I never really knew you,
You helped encourage me to tread.
I’ll do my Jesus Christ Pose.
For you Heaven isn’t Dead.