an old writer and his words

  • POSTDILUVIAN

    So when Noah finally docks the ark on Mt. Ararat, or wherever, how does he decide which animals get off first? And for that matter, the earth having been flooded for weeks, just what are they supposed to eat on new land? For the vegetarians it must have been very slim pickings, and who wants…

    Lou Faber

  • LAKE SHORE LIMITED

    The little girl-women pile onto the train carrying backpacks, pillows and stuffed animals, all they will soon leave in the rooms of childhood. In the train’s café, Gerald welcomes us back his “established customers,” he says to all, as we sit beneath the wide awning that is his smile, sipping the much needed coffee.

    Lou Faber

  • IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?

    He said to her, “you know it really irritates me how you always seem to repeat yourself. Say it once and that’s enough.” She paused, thought about his comment, then said, “You know, despite what you say, I don’t, I don’t really, but nuance is something that always seems just beyond your comprehension.” He bristled,…

    Lou Faber

  • OF THEE I SING

    My ancestors stole your tongue and left you mute in a world you could not grasp.                                            Now as I search for words of forgiveness I can find none, for my voice is clogged with…

    Lou Faber

  • IN THE GARDEN

    He imagined what it must have been like in the garden, before the snake, before the damned apple, though certainly not before the missing rib, that was a complete and utter bore, and yes beauty can be infinitely boring given half a chance. But to be blissfully ignorant, without the burden of knowledge, the taste…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT ARRIVES

    When we finally allow night to settle in around us, and we curl together in anticipation of sleep, we fit comfortably, but with no less passion than when we first did this, but a passion tempered by less need for flame, more for warmth and a gentle caress. We could not have anticipated this, and…

    Lou Faber

  • DISCOVERING ME

    They were always almost mythological, heroes of a people I could only imagine as my own, knowing I came from a far different place, one of shtetls and pogroms, of seaside villages, the beaches of Cascais. It was half a lie, but I couldn’t know it then, couldn’t guess my dream was reality, my reality…

    Lou Faber

  • GHOST SITTING

    I sat with the ghost again this morning, the one who inhabits the body that was once my father. Ghosts find it difficult to speak from within living bodies, so mostly it squeezed my hand and offered an occasional weak smile or nod, said I looked good, but ghosts do have trouble seeing out of…

    Lou Faber

  • PHOTO

    I look at the photo, me holding my granddaughter. Between us we are 57 years old, she has just celebrated her first birthday. In the photograph we are both laughing hysterically, in the photo we are both young children.

    Lou Faber

  • PAPAL EDICT

    She said “now what they’ve taken away limbo” sounding a bit depressed, “not that you proceed express to the ferry dock, but that was a snap, all you were carefully taught is suddenly wrong or irrelevant. “It would be like Isaac,” I say, “climbing Mount Moriah with Abraham finding a ram tethered to a waiting…

    Lou Faber