Night

June 8, 2023

WIDOWER

In the cold night
of another winter
he stares out
across the barren fields
which have long forgotten
the taste of the sun.
He watches carefully
for a sign
but the naked branch
denies the breeze.
He remembers
how it once was
in the heat
of the dying fire
the sweetness of her lips
lingering on his tongue.
She is gone, has been
so long, her face
is hidden
by the gauzy veil
of time.
He awaits
the edge of dawn
that sleeps eternally
beyond the horizon.

First appeared in North of Oxford, May 2023
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/two-poems-by-louis-faber/

June 1, 2023

A CITY OUT THERE

Somewhere out there
in a city struggling
there is a man dancing
in the reflected light
of a street lamp
to the sound of the wind,
there is a couple
caressing each other,
wishing for just one
cigarette,
there is a baby
calling for its mother
for a meal,
there is a car
parked in a driveway
its lights fading
into the bleakness,
there is a neon sign
flashing OPEN
into the void of night,
there is a man
sitting on a bed
begging for sleep.

First appeared in North of Oxford, May 2023
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/two-poems-by-louis-faber/

May 28, 2023

SONG OF THE UNIVERSE

It was a certain rhythm that he loved
he felt it in total silence, it faded
in the presence of sound, a doumbek
of the soul he would describe it.

He remembered how it was before
their one God rendered him and his kind
mere mythological creatures fit only
for poetry and dusty library shelves.

He would have his revenge some day,
would condemn their God to a corner
of the heavens, an eternity to reconsider
the rashness of his narcissism, but

in the meanwhile he would continue
to rest in the heart of this constellation
hoping to go unnoticed, happy just
to listen to the rhythm of the universe.

May 25, 2023

MESA

This night
in cold moonlight
earth rises up
clouds float down
ghosts walk the margin.
Old ones sing
now shall be then
older ones still sing
then shall be once
to wolf and coyote.
In this season of north winds
sun’s heat barren
spirits rise up
dreams descend
man lies interspersed.
Women sing
we are bearers
men sing
we are sowers.

First appeared in Dipity, Vol. 3, April 2023

May 21, 2023

CALLING

As I age, I more willingly accede
to the sirens call of sleep
for as night washes over me
pulling up its blanket of stars
she takes me on a voyage
to destinations she will
not disclose until our arrival.
The journey may be pleasant
or the seas of night can be
roiling, but her grip is firm.
But in her never certain world
age can slough off, fall away
until my body and its increasing
frailties and limitations slip away
and my youth is no longer
a memory, but on this night
or that, it is my new if transient reality.
But I dare not cling to it, for
the sun will intercede again
and drag me back to the body
I so willingly escape each night.

May 18, 2023

IN ABSENTIA

It is, I think
her lips I miss most
their butterfly flutter
across my cheek
then her eyes, almost feline
that see within
behind walls
hastily erected
that fall to her sight.
It is all of that
and the whispered words
linking hearts
that still echo
as she slides into sleep.
I cry out to Morpheus
my words are swallowed
by the drone
of the engines
that fall as rain
into the Sea of Okhotsk
to wash onto the shore
of Khabarovsk.

First Published in The Globe Review, Issue 2, April 2023
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4f02f9b80a.html

May 11, 2023

NIGHT VISITOR

Across Bedford Avenue
in the fourth floor window
the antique bird print
is bathed in the light
of a Chinese ginger jar lamp.
Her shadow dances
across the wall, arms
wrapped tightly around herself
in the sway of Terpsichore
singing her melancholy song.
I hear only
the cacophony of the drunk
on the corner
braying to the moon
and the rumble
of the lorry
on Tottenham Court Road.

First Published in The Globe Review, Issue 2, April 2023
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4f02f9b80a.html

April 6, 2023

ANOTHER EVENING SPENT

I wonder if there are priests
sitting on beds drinking Diet Coke
and contemplating the meaning
of heaven, of sex,
of indigestion from a burger
and fries with onions
in a bar, the angels
covering their ears from the din
of four pool tables,
of slipping on the spilled Red Rock,
while outside the traffic thins
and the neon blinks
its message to the gods.

First appeared in Anthropocene, Issue 1, 2021
https://www.anthropocenepoetry.org/post/another-evening-spent-by-louis-faber

March 28, 2023

MOON WATCH

I’m guessing it was
about 2 AM, I can’t be sure
since the only clock
in the bedroom was analog
and unlighted, visible only by day.

I don’t know what woke me,
it just seems to happen, but the moon
was peering in between the slats
of closed window blinds.

I don’t like being watched
in my sleep, certainly not
by some voyeuristic interloper
but there she was and it was clear
there wasn’t a damned thing
I could do about it,
and we both knew it.

On the mesa she might be accompanied
by a coyote, but here she traveled solo
always seeming to want to watch
as my dreams unfurled
across the screen, and Luna simply
didn’t want to miss this night’s show.

March 18, 2023

UNDER THE BED

There was a ghost
or two for a short while,
that lived under my bed
when I was three or four.

My mother said they
were not real, she couldn’t
see them when she looked,
so they were all in my mind.

I had to tell her that you
don’t ever actually see ghosts,
you just know they are there
because you sense their presence.

Mother’s ghost visited me
last night in my dreams, but
I reminded her that she didn’t
believe ghosts exist, and returned
to the dream she interrupted
and she . . . oh I don’t know what
she did, but she wasn’t there
and I suspect will not return,
which is entirely fine by me.