an old writer and his words

  • APP-LICATION DENIED

    I can still recall my grandmother saying,whenever she thought I should be outsiderather than sitting in my room with a book,that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jewsdid not believe in the devil and that,in any event my hands were engagedin holding the book and turning pages.I…

    Lou Faber

  • TY NEWYDD

    In the gently aging house,replete with writersthere are endless roomsin which the muse dartsdispensing her soul.I prefer to sit with the catcurled in an overstuffed chairher head risingand falling imperceptiblyour breaths harmonic.We commune in unspoken dialoga language of silencebespeaking volumesof our shared existence. First published in The River, Sandy River Review, March 2024https://sandyriverreview.com/2024/03/30/seeing-you-again-next-stop-riding-ty-newydd/

    Lou Faber

  • WRITER

    He knew he had the novel in him. He had no idea where it was hiding, but it was there and all he had to do was to find it. He had looked in most of the obvious places but all he had found was memoir and the odd bit of non-fiction. They were fine…

    Lou Faber

  • FOR THE BIRTHDAY BOY

    On April 23 of this coming year,Wiliam Shakespeare will celebratehis 450th birthday, a momentous occasionto be certain, but knowing how cantankeroushe can be the odds of him showing upat the party I want to throw for him areabout as slim as the odds of Bob Dylanever sitting down on the edge of the stagewherever he…

    Lou Faber

  • KNOWING

    It is now a given that youwill always want to know morefor that is human nature, which isto say an intellectual greed.It is not a deadly sin, butit did get Adam and Evekicked out of Eden, sobe careful for what you ask.What you don’t consideris what you might do withthe information, the moreif you were…

    Lou Faber

  • CRIME SCENE

    It was far and away the worstcrime scene he could rememberand he had been at it for many years.Over here were the bodiesof anapests and dactylsmotionless where they fell,oh how he wanted to pulla white sheet over themfor his sake if not for theirsfor they were beyond caring.By the wall he saw a trocheehalf draped…

    Lou Faber

  • HOPE, YET

    There is a certain pleasurein reading obscure biographiesof the decidedly lesser lightsof their respective fields.Inevitably a writer assiduouslystruggles to avoid mentionof the great men and womenwho define the discipline,and the books are shorter,for even if their lives were visitedby great trials, and even ifthey overcame obstacles,we all know they ascendedonly so far, and we,at the…

    Lou Faber

  • READING PAUL MULDOON

    Reading Paul Muldoon this afternoonI thought of you for no reason.It wasn’t your birthday, notthat you celebrate them where you are,nor the anniversary of the day you died.And it certainly was not becauseI was reading about Ireland sinceI never imagined I had Irish blood, andyou never went there, and when I didI didn’t know you…

    Lou Faber

  • UNSPOKEN

    There is so much that hewould talk about, but dare not say.He knows keeping it withinis a recipe for pain and sufferingbut letting it loose makesthat pain and suffering a certaintyfor others and he is notwilling to do that to anyone.He laughs when he wants so muchto curse language for wordsare all he has and…

    Lou Faber

  • INCARNATION

    I had been sitting for an hourin the coffee shop areaof the now gone Borders bookstoretrying to piece together the shardsof a life shattered by the impendingend of a long marriage that wasgoing to last for a lifetime.And I was hoping, perhaps,to meet someone, ready or not,to try and fill the smallest cornerof what was…

    Lou Faber