January 11, 2023 Image

THE DARK SIDE

She is so often present
as the sun makes its
daily retreat, we
imagine she is
mysterious as
she hides, or
does she take
refuge in the shadows.?
Only a few
have truly seen her
and they speak only
of her luminescent
alter ego.

March 15, 2020

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

I received the invitation today, but I won’t be attending. I’m not inclined to RSVP, for that will only drive home the fact that I couldn’t afford to attend. They have to know this, and if they don’t, well… That really is their problem. My mother said you should always RSVP, yes or no, but she’s been dead two years, never said she’d attend anything again. And anyway I still believe the rule doesn’t apply to any invitation addressed to Current Resident

December 24, 2019

GAME, SET, MATCH

As a child, a Jewish child no less,
December was always a bit difficult.
We had Channukah, which no Jew
would dare claim grew solely to compete
with Christmas, although we all knew
that was precisely what had happened.

The problem was Christmas, but had
nothing to do with Jesus, or the church
or even its historical teachings about
the supposed role we Jews played
in that story, a role for which we
had been paying for two millennia.

The problem was far more basic,
and all you needed to do was drive
down virtually any street in any city
and it would be at once apparent.
Christmas-celebrating homes were decked
out in all colors of lights, while
Jewish homes, those few who competed,
were left with a palate of white
and blue, or up to nine candles,
and that was a guaranteed for sure
last place finish in the December game.

December 3, 2019

LIVES

I have lived many lives,
too many to count, and I
remember bits and pieces
of each, but not necessarily
to which life this bit
or that bit should attach.

It is why I run them
together, view them
as a singularity, easier
to cope even when I
know it is a nice delusion.

I do wonder, at the moment
of death if each life will
flash by in turn, countless
short films, or if the gods
will go along with my
delusion, or maybe just
say time’s up, lights off.

June 9, 2023

THE SKY DEMANDS

He stopped his walk along the country road
and stared up at the moonless sky.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing so, just as
he knew we had no choice but to do so.
The stars this far from the city were so
different than the city stars, so
much brighter, so much hotter, he said
to no one, infinitely hotter out here,
suspended in a space that was
infinitely cold, beyond all sensation.
He knew it was a mistake to stare
into the sky out here, for the city’s
stars were far less numerous, and burned
with the heat he knew he could bear, and space
was nothing more than a dark gray canvas
on which they chose to paint themselves.

June 8, 2023

WIDOWER

In the cold night
of another winter
he stares out
across the barren fields
which have long forgotten
the taste of the sun.
He watches carefully
for a sign
but the naked branch
denies the breeze.
He remembers
how it once was
in the heat
of the dying fire
the sweetness of her lips
lingering on his tongue.
She is gone, has been
so long, her face
is hidden
by the gauzy veil
of time.
He awaits
the edge of dawn
that sleeps eternally
beyond the horizon.

First appeared in North of Oxford, May 2023
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/two-poems-by-louis-faber/

June 7, 2023

SO TO SPEAK

One of the obvious problems
with growing older is the tendency
to begin using phrases you always detested
when young: “back in the day,” and it’s
equivalents maddened you in your youth
and are now a common element of your vernacular.

Worse still is the knowledge that the days
which you seem to lovingly recall
weren’t all that good as you lived them,
rendered less so, you then believed, by
your parents’ endless references
to the good old days, when you knew
that days were fixed periods, an astronomical
phenomenon, and there was nothing
the least bit good or bad about them.

But you stop and take solace that
the grimaces of your grandchildren’s faces
when you use the expression will one day,
soon enough, be given over to their use.

June 6, 2023

OUT OF HIDING

The hidden joy of youth, and its
inevitable disappointment, is
in finding that special person.
Each time it is the birth of true love,
eventually, save in rare circumstances,
it is the death of an illusion
and the aching pain accompanying the loss.

The certainty of youthful emotion
is a bondage that is most often inescapable,
and there is no desire to leave early on.
It is only the passage of time, the growth
of two, each at his or her own pace,
that yields a force capable of breaking
the chains of desire that, to that moment,
successfully masqueraded as love.

Old now, and certain of love, I can
reflect on the foolishness of youth,
the mistakes made, the consequences
to myself and others, and I can regret them
but always with the knowledge that I
am here in joy, very much because of them.

June 5, 2023

SANSHO’S GOLDEN CARP

When you sit
before your teacher
if you ask him a question
he will return only silence.
If you listen
to his silence closely
the dharma
will be revealed to you.
A large stone
that rolls easily
may not be lifted.

A reflection on Case 33 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

June 4, 2023

CHARLESTON, WV

Half of me, according to the twisted
strands of deoxyribonucleic acid,
has its roots in Liskovo, which would be
a simple matter were there not towns
by that name in Poland and Belarus,
and none in Lithuania, the language of my genes.

All of this is preparatory to my visit
next week to the city where my mother,
grandparents and great grandparents
are buried, and my intended first sight
of their gravestones, my first true touching
of a family denied me by my birth
and adoption that severed all but
that which my genes kept hidden
until cold stones were all that was left.

I will place a stone on each marker,
and take a quick photo, hoping
that in a strange way the Navajo elders
were right, and I will carry away
a small bit of their souls, which will
fill a small corner of the deep chasm
that is the me I was never meant to know.

June 3, 2023

UNUSUAL

I recall it wasn’t as cold as usual
that early November evening, I
was standing nervously on the small deck
in front of the Indian restaurant.
This was going to be my fourth
first date of my lifetime, not
surprising in the abstract, unless
you realize that put me on an average
of one every twelve years.
Fast forward almost three years
and I am standing on the wood floor
of the grand hall of a once great mansion
slowly reciting my vows, looking
at what I assumed was as close
as I would come to seeing heaven.
That was nineteen years ago
and as I stand here there is nothing
I would have done differently
save doing it all so very,
very, very much sooner.

June 2, 2023

FORGIVE ME

There is always a certain level
of guilt when the Amazon
package arrives, as they did
almost daily, since I
mostly avoided stores
during the pandemic.
My guilt arises at the sight
of the face of the driver
rushing to leave the package,
leaping back on the truck,
knowing he is graded on
the speed at which he
completes the far too long run,
relieving himself in a bottle.
I wouldn’t take his job
for any pay, but I will
expect to see him tomorrow
when the item I could
have lived without arrives
only a day late, to my frustration.

June 1, 2023

A CITY OUT THERE

Somewhere out there
in a city struggling
there is a man dancing
in the reflected light
of a street lamp
to the sound of the wind,
there is a couple
caressing each other,
wishing for just one
cigarette,
there is a baby
calling for its mother
for a meal,
there is a car
parked in a driveway
its lights fading
into the bleakness,
there is a neon sign
flashing OPEN
into the void of night,
there is a man
sitting on a bed
begging for sleep.