an old writer and his words

  • ISRAEL’S JUSTIFICATION FOR THE BOMB

    Once it was fur hatsmen on horsebackswords and torchesour villages casting a faint glowfalling into dying embers,here, one whose skullbears the mark of the hoof,there an old onewho would go no farther. Once it was a helmettanks for horsesflames contained in crematoriacities taken for the deservingwe, merely ashesshoveled into a pit,here a tooth, its goldtorn…

    Lou Faber

  • HISTORY

    Deep in the valley of memoryon the altar of Areswe sacrifice them, always youngeach generation we areAbraham unrestrained,the pardon always moments late.We are Olmecs, relying noton the sun’s passagebut on a mainspring tightly wound.Our gods hunger and mustbe sated lest we lose favorand their image change. In our boneyardpriests and victimsslowly decomposefade into earthwashed deepby…

    Lou Faber

  • RIDING THE WASTELAND

    We set out with bold ambition, egos saddled and reined across a landscape left barren by our leaders who saw only carefully stacked boards and beams awaiting the master carpenter, great floral sprays dotting the lobbies of glass and chrome edifices, created in their own images. We ride in search of the promised land, and…

    Lou Faber

  • KIKE

    Third grade, religious school kikes, us, then a backhand raised, drawn, quickly dropped, below a reddened face, sleeve pulled up 145233 in black between elbow and wrist and a tear, perched fearing to fall. Never again, and nothing more, later, same arm ruffling hair, smoke clinging to aging skin, no older when he walked in…

    Lou Faber

  • KAFKA

    June 13, 1896, Prague a warm day, old stone schul you stood before the minyon wearing the skullcap repeating ancient words that lay on paper, rehearsed sounding false on a tongue swollen in anxiety. Your tallit, white woven with blue threads hung at your knees fringe fingered, rolled and unrolled, twisted until touched to skin…

    Lou Faber

  • HOLY VISIONS

    Night has swallowed the city and in the laundromat, dryer 42 decries her loose drive belt. The young girl turns, “can you see it the Virgin Mary, in the glass porthole”. No, I think, only white cotton panties and several pair of jeans in endless rotation. “She speaks to me, asking for my forgiveness for…

    Lou Faber

  • HOLY GRAMMAR

    The Rabbi smiled and said God writes history only in the future perfect tense. First published in European Judaism (UK) Vol. 33, No.1 (2000) For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog: Bird-of-the-day.com 

    Lou Faber

  • DEAD OR JUST RESTING?

    Some people say religion is dead, or at least mortally wounded. In my generation, closer to death than puberty, there is some truth to that thought because God seems a whole lot less responsive these days, our peers beginning to fall like lemmings from the cliff. But the young clearly have found what has gotten…

    Lou Faber

  • VESPERS

    The sun slowly starts it’s daily retreat, setting the thinning clouds ablaze. The birds return, ibis, egrets, anhinga and kite and even the limpkin march slowly across the lawn to the preserve that abuts our yard. They take up their perches on the trees and bushes and on the limpkin’s call begin quietly to recite…

    Lou Faber

  • NIL

    I was honored to have this recently published in Arena Magazine: A Magazine of Critical Thinking, Issue 162 from Victoria, Australia It was supposed to be the simplest of all the numbers nestled neatly in the center of the number line. For years its logic evaded our efforts to comprehend its simplicity. It didn’t look…

    Lou Faber