an old writer and his words

  • REFLECTIONS

    When I gaze into the mirrorI see an aging man that I knowshould not be me and yetI know that he could only be me.I want to know just what I didto fall into disfavor with the gods,why they stripped me ofthe immortality I knewI once had, now gone.I know there is no getting itback…

    Lou Faber

  • AFTER THE UNVEILING

    I threw the first shovelof dirt on your wooden coffin. I expected you to protestthe sullying of the polished wood, or to call out for your mother,or introduce us to your long dead husband,but all we heard was the thunk and chunkof the clayey earth dancing off the cover,while you maintained silence. First published in…

    Lou Faber

  • ELLISON WAS HERE

    I still remember sitting raptly listening to youread a story you promised would bein your next collection, Harlan, or certainlythe one after that, after all you were a writerand without writing you were a marginalcharacter in the story of a city given overto film and television and you were no actor.You were fearless, you told…

    Lou Faber

  • MUSEUMS NO MORE

    Travel guides always wantto send me to museums of art,of history, of culture, of science.I appreciate their guidance but Iwould prefer to spend my timevisiting zoos, looking at animalsand ignoring the placardspainfully detailing what I am seeing.I have been to countlessmuseums and while each offeredbeauty and knowledge, eachdemanded that I needed to learn,to interpret, to…

    Lou Faber

  • FORGOTTEN

    In the great cemeteryin a corner reserved for thatostentation only wealth can buyI am struck by one massivemarble walled mausoleum.Who lies within is of noimportance to anyone otherthan the ones who lie within.Small graves in common bulksections are dotted with freshor faded flowers waitingto nourish the soil, or is itthe souls of those who lie…

    Lou Faber

  • UNSCRIPTED

    I am so tired of readinglines written for me by othersalways a cold readinglacking emotion and substance.I have my own voice, readyto deliver my soliloquy.I have been livingfor seven decades.But I know that Iwill be seen as yetanother Yorickushered off the stage.And I imaging myselfremembered by someone youngerwho will recall no morethan a passing memory.

    Lou Faber

  • A TROIS

    Each night I crawl under the sheetscurled against the woman I loveand beside me slips your ghost.For sixty years you were no morethan a fleeting dream faceless, nameless,an infrequent visitor to my galleryof hopes, desires, and wishes.You never had a face, did Ihave one you could remember beforeI was plucked from you too soon, youlurking…

    Lou Faber

  • SEPARATING

    We sometimes speak of continentspulling apart, land bridges severed,the route taken to get here now gone,no going back, no back to go to.The continent of my youth, myyoung adulthood is gone, recededinto the fog of fading memory, and Iam now a prisoner of sorts on thisnew continent of life, moving evermore quickly to an unavoidable…

    Lou Faber

  • IN PASSING

    I remember heras the little girl wantinga birthday pony I see a womanfinding her way in the worldalways beautiful I want to forgetthe still far too young womantaken by cancer

    Lou Faber

  • OCCASIONALLY

    I can still remember that dayin San Francisco, on Columbusjust down from City Lights Books,a young man sitting on a milk crateanother in front of him on whichhe perched an old typewriter.“A dollar buys you a poem”he said with a mix of hopeand resignation, his fingers poisedover the worn keys, their lettersfading as was his…

    Lou Faber