an old writer and his words

  • JE SAIS QUOI

    I admit I am an odd duck, odder for not being a duck at all. But the expression has a certain je ne sais quoi to it, as does that expression and I am all about language. All that is a long round about way of acknowledging that I have always wanted to use the…

    Lou Faber

  • PANDEMIC DREAMS

    What I most want to do now,locked in by something unseen,is to wander the streets of citieshere, Europe, it hardly matters,and find statues whose plaquesare worn away or gone missing,now nameless souls of oncelesser fame meriting a bronzeor of such ego as donatingtheir own image to the town. They are forgotten souls, oftenrightfully so no…

    Lou Faber

  • SHELVED

    They speak of me, never to me,with terms like breakage, as thoughlife, mine at least, is a glass bottleon a shelf with so many others,and a certain percentage are pre-assumed to break and be discardedand no one will bat an eyelash. To them I am nameless, one of many,stock in trade, with no provenance,or at…

    Lou Faber

  • ME ME

    Coming soon perhapsbut hard to saychoose carefully a moment whenmeme andavatarmerge and youcease to exist or exist twiceand whichyou isreal is leftto others but that youis immortalnow unlessbeset bya magneticcatastrophe, butyou’ll likelybe ashes andshould notgive a damn.

    Lou Faber

  • A LOST PEN

    I wrote a poem for my father,about how one afternoonthe oddly green ’57 Caddyappeared in the drivewayand he polished its chrome for hours,even waxed the black bumper bullets.It was the love of his lifehe said, except for his wife,he added after a moment.The years would provethat addition was most likely false.I could send him the…

    Lou Faber

  • LEX

    Well before there wasAristotle, there was aa,which comes as no surpriseto geologists who neverdoubted the historyand creation ofthis planet. Well after the zebrathere was the zygote,which a biologistwould tell youis putting the cartwell before the horse. The lexicographer will saythat he did not createthis disconnect, for heor she is a mere recorder,so you’d have to…

    Lou Faber

  • 詩

    The Japanese inventedhaiku certain that a paintingof great beauty couldbe completed with onlya few strokes of the brush. The Japanese have no wordfor what we claim is higherorder poetry, academic andpedantic are two other Englishwords which easily apply.And the Japanese are hard putto comprehend so much of whatwe deem experimental, the result,a friend named Yoshi…

    Lou Faber

  • INSIDE THE PAGE

    She asks innocently,listening to the wind whisperingthrough the bare branches of the oak,“How long have you livedin this poem,” pointingto the page of markedand remarked typescript.He looks at her as if discoveringshe’d grown another head,peeking out from betweenher well-polished teeth.“I have no idea what you mean,”he says, “I write the poems—it is up to you…

    Lou Faber

  • FOR NOW

    Tomorrow this poem willmost assuredly no longer be here,though when during the nightit will slip away, never againto be seen, I don’t know or perhaps itwill return in a form I would not recognize,recrafted by the hand of an unseen editor. It may take on a meaning unfamiliar,or translate itself into a tonguethat I can…

    Lou Faber

  • I SPEND THE EMPTY HOURS

    I spend considerable time thinkingabout what it is that I am, what is I,whether Descartes’ God or Spinoza’scould possibly exist, or must if I can havemeaning beyond self-reflection, needinga godly mirror, and image reflected.Cogito, on what basis can I draw that conclusionwhat logical proof, carefully constructed willnot fall under the weight of the axiom, cogito…

    Lou Faber