an old writer and his words

  • PURSE AND WALLET

    A woman’s purse is inviolable territoryshe tells me, and no man dare look withinunless invited and that is as unlikey to happenas a man is to fully understand a woman. What she doesn’t say, but what time hasdemonstrated to me repeatedly, is thatwithin that small space is the solutionto most of life’s pressing problems, a…

    Lou Faber

  • CALL AGAIN

    You called again this morning, and,as usual, long before I was awake.You left no message, but you never do,and I do wish you’d stay in one place just for a while, it would make findingyou to speak with you much easier.This morning you were in Azerbaijan,and last week you called from Belarus. Later today you…

    Lou Faber

  • 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

  • WANDER WHY

    The path meandered more than he rememberedbut he was the first to admithis memory was never his strongest suit.It didn’t help that he had consumedtwo margaritas at lunch, and even hedidn’t believe the excuse that this wasa slow day for him, still sober at two in the afternoon.But he wandered the path, for thatis what…

    Lou Faber

  • WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

    We are, he is convinced,devolving into verbal neanderthals,losing are ability to recognizethe linguistic tools that onceset us apart from other species,or at least so we assured ourselves.She knows that what truly sets usapart from other species is the arcaneskill we have at being ableto convince ourselves thatdelusion, firmly held, is fact.Still, she cannot disagree with…

    Lou Faber

  • SUNDAY NIGHT

    It is almost midnight.If this was Seoul, the Hilton,I could walk down the hillto Namdaeman Marketand wander around the shopsthe smell of the city, of pigs headssimmering in giant caldrons,fish lying on beds of melting iceand look at silk and stainlessflatware, watches and celendoncasting its faint green glowin the fluorescent night,but it is Virginia and…

    Lou Faber

  • THE CLUB

    It’s jazz, it’s a club,but there what once wasis no more, there areno ashtrays on the table,overflowing early intothe second set, no cloudof cigarette smoke descendingfrom the too dark ceiling.There is no recognizable odorof a freshly lit Gaulloise,in the trembling fingers ofa young man trying to look cool,trying not to cough on eachinhalation, in the…

    Lou Faber

  • PELICAN

    The pelican hasn’t been aroundfor a couple of days, and we misshis akimbo dives into the pond,surfacing and throwing his head backto show he’s swallowing his catcheven though we suspect some of the timehe caught nothing at all, but knowingwe’re as gullible an audienceas he is likely to find any time soon.We hope he is…

    Lou Faber

  • FLIP IT

    It would be an anathema to himif he were a Pope or held deeply feltopinions about anything, but he does not.He denies being vacillating, rather, he says,he is just open to a multitude of views,never mind, she replies, that hecan never make any important decisionexcept by mere chance or luck.He says he prefers life this…

    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