It is the last morning of November. I wake at four to a cold house. Time to start the fire. The wood takes a long time to catch, and it takes me no time to grow impatient. Self-accusation begins at once, and the accused is guilty until proven innocent. How can you be so incapable? How, after hundreds of times starting fires, can you still struggle to accomplish the task this morning? The accused is in his own movie, the main and only defendant in a staged trial by fire, but try as he might he cannot get the wood hot enough to be tried. The case is neither well received nor poorly received by the jury. There is no jury, and there are no witnesses. No one else sits in this theatre of the absurd to watch this film on repeat reel. There is no reception; there was never a wedding; there will be no consummation.
Fire
“Take From Me This Need to Flee”
When she looks away from me, my heart’s encased in ice
The moment her gaze returns to me, I’d take her worst advice
This dependence forms a bed of coals, it walls me off from her
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
The fire within, it needs a way out, and so I write these words
To find the way, I need to be led, at least that’s what I’ve heard
I’ve got no new solution, all my problems, they always recur
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
I always see her from across the street, walking the other way
She always pretends I don’t exist, to my undying dismay
Today I swore I would enjoy my time, the entire day was a blur
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
Far I traveled to a lonely isle, to leave all my troubles behind
All I found was a mermaid lover to caress me then rob me blind
My friends they tell me to take it easy, and man I wish that could occur
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
She’s never so alone, she told me, as when she’s out in a crowd
Her soul is pure, she rarely speaks; to be true she cannot be loud
I think of her from time to time, and can feel my heartstrings stir
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
The thirst for liquor is a thirst for spirit, this I know deep in my blood
On thorn-filled trails I’ve tripped and stumbled till my face was caked with mud
I’ve drank away my share of days, like Kerouac at Big Sur
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
Other people: that’s hell, wrote a man skilled at expressing his own
On many days I agree with him, and wish I were miles from a phone
But I know I’m slipping when I start thinking that others can only deter
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
Well, the snare was set, and I walked in, thinking the trap a boon
The one I love she loves another, though in my arms she once did swoon
I’ve walked the sands, I’ve been to sea, every shore falls short of her
Take from me this need to flee, take me back to how we were
“As The Day Begins”
The day begins with a fire that cannot be seen
like a young girl who does not speak
for fear of losing what burns within her.
The day begins with birds that cannot be seen
singing like those who know better than to speak
and so lose what gives them song.
The day begins with doors that cannot be closed
allowing what has lost itself with yearning
to find itself as it burns.
As the day begins,
everyone needs to get something out
to let something in:
By the end of the day,
no one remembers what it was.
No one knows
everyone needs
to get out
and let in
the same thing
in their own way.
What feeds the ember
feeds the hungering soul —
rootless — seeking its own root
in flames that grow invisible.
The hard wood crackles in growing flame
inside invisible growth
as the heart withstands the splintering
forced upon it to remain soft.
As the day begins.
Already the day begins, but
the bottom of the root has not reached
the top of the stem, and I
am not ready for beginnings.
The day begins
only when I begin to listen
to each moment ending
and each moment beginning.
I hear the unheard as the day begins:
I hear the pressed down sobs of young children
setting up lemonade stands
to cool the mid-July heat of unspoken divisions
and prove their own grown-upness,
prove their groundedness
to intoxicated parents,
who are like children in their pettiness.
I see the unseen as the day begins:
I see the homelessness
that hides behind estate gates;
I see the clenched souls
that hide behind open faces;
I see the wrenching sorrow
that hides behind too-wide grins;
I see the yearning for purity
that hides behind drunken eyes.
And I feel the untouched as the day begins:
I feel the push for contact,
and I feel the pull back;
I feel the pain of the one
who does not know how to be
with another,
and I feel the pain of the one
who does not know how to be
alone,
And I feel the pain of the one who knows she is alone,
I feel her struggle to make contact;
I feel what she feels
when she finds herself
unable
to touch the truth
of her aloneness.
As the day begins.
Brian Leibold 