an old writer and his words

  • I WONDER

    As a poet I would bemost interested in learningwhat you read when youare reading one of my poems. I know it sounds strange, after allI wrote it, but often when I readone of my poems it is differentin small or large waysfrom the last time I read it. I know that each reader in turnrewrites…

    Lou Faber

  • LONE STAR

    I feel like I ought to beliving in Texas againfor everything, they say,is bigger in Texas and youdon’t argue with a Texan. So much in my life is bigger nowa computer monitor that wouldpass for a moderate sized TV,with font so large a single pagefills the screen, and the tabletthe size of, but thank Godnot…

    Lou Faber

  • EPITAPH FOR ANOTHER DAY

    When I write the storyof my life, it will not beme standing by the seastaff in hand, waitingfor the waters to part.It will be sand, endlessseas of sand, piledaround my feet.I will not recount ten plaguesfor there is only onethat matters at alland it was notterribly exciting,no generation perished,we weren’t overrunwith frogs or verminsave the…

    Lou Faber

  • MOON WATCH

    I’m guessing it wasabout 2 AM, I can’t be suresince the only clockin the bedroom was analogand unlighted, visible only by day. I don’t know what woke me,it just seems to happen, but the moonwas peering in between the slatsof closed window blinds. I don’t like being watchedin my sleep, certainly notby some voyeuristic interloperbut…

    Lou Faber

  • IN HIDING

    The truth lives in the interstices,increasingly harder to seeamid the morass of desire,lost in the tides of alternative truthsas some prefer to call lies these days.If you look for it you will find it,for it burrows in, refusing to leave,to be dislodged, transmuted, forgotten.For most it cannot be seen but need onlybe assumed, but those…

    Lou Faber

  • HOGEN POINTS TO THE BLIND

    As you go about searchingfor what are you looking?What is there you want to gainwhat do you fear you lack?When you see there isneither gain nor lossthen you haveall that you need. A reflection on Case 27 of the Book of Equanimity, 従容錄, Shōyōroku

    Lou Faber

  • CONCEIVE OF THIS

    No child, no youthwants to imagine the momentof his or her conception.Now, that is the moment of personhoodin some places, a moment whentwo cells become one and isa life of its own, but it isn’tthe convergence of sperm and ovumwe avoid, but the act leading to it.When you are an adopteeand only later in life…

    Lou Faber

  • RADIOACTIVE

    I cannot say for certain which dayI became the familial isotope,but I know my parents beganaccreting neutrons not longafter their marriage, boundto their mutual core, unboundfrom me, adopted into the family,and I then became the isotopeof the family but remote,easily enough forgotten,when I was not present.That is, I suppose, one possiblefate for an isotope, it’s…

    Lou Faber

  • WWYD

    How often have I seen somethinglike WWBD – what would Buddha do –but lately I’ve stoppedto think about that. What if old Gautama Siddharthawere to arrive here, now,what would the Buddha doin a world gone wholly mad? Would he bother with sutras,bother with teishos to the fewstill willing to listen, or wouldhe check himself into…

    Lou Faber

  • KYOZAN POINTS TO SNOW

    When you comesearching for a keyto unlock the doorto NirvanaI will ask youto completea simple task.All you need to dois go to the oceanand select the onedrop of water differentfrom all of the others. A reflection on Case 26 of the Book of Equanimity, 従容錄, Shōyōroku

    Lou Faber