an old writer and his words

  • BALANCING ACT

    Push came to shove the other day. At least that was my position, although some said it was more propelled, or at best a nominal thrust. When my face hit the dirt I was convinced it was a shove, if not a ramming or bulldozing. And I’m sure the other guy wonders if it was…

    Lou Faber

  • UNANSWERED

    As strange as it seems, I canspend hours in a used bookstorelost in the marginalia, and textbooks, particularly those in psych and sociologyare generally the most fertile,for those students, though they would never admit it, pursued those fieldshoping to find answers to their ownproblems without having to ask. Yesterday’s visit was particularly fertile,but it was…

    Lou Faber

  • JOSHU MEASURE THE WATER

    When your mind is ragingthoughts flowing, eddyingwhen you enter the zendowhat do you do in sitting? Do you take your stickand measure the waterto insure a safe fording,or do you sit amid the streamand let the floodwash over and around youdry and silent within? A reflection on case 47 of the Iron Flute Koans

    Lou Faber

  • LATTE

    At the coffee shop they chatter as if in some foreign tongue, conversations overlaid one on another on another, until all I can strain are snippets of words, stray syllables. This is true everywhere I have visited, and it promises good coffee, for I have found that when I can easily eavesdrop on others at…

    Lou Faber

  • BLOSSOM

    I remember the cherry treesalong the reflecting pool, thoughexcept in April they mostly reflecteda partially clouded sky promising rain. Their pinkness was a tone I havesearched for since, and cameclosest in Tokyo, jealous of the emperorand his gardens so carefully tended. It is that time again, and this yearas in so many past, I will…

    Lou Faber

  • SWAN DIVE

    Its plump, dusty-white feathered bodysits atop the pond like an invertediceberg, as the lindens fringing the fieldshed their seeds onto the hardened soil.The swan lumbers across the surfacewith no particular urgency or directionslowed by the entropy of a late August afternoon,the laughed shouts of childrenplunging headlong to dinner,diverted to bathroomsfor the cursory sprinklingof unholy water,the…

    Lou Faber

  • ROBO

    The phone is again ringing,and the odds say it is someonewho wants to extend my warrantyon the car I no longer own, or to lower my credit card interestthough I never carry a balance,or to help me fix my computer if Ijust hand over control to them. I won’t answer this time, almostnever do unless…

    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

  • DUGO AND UNGAN MEET

    When your mind is ragingthoughts flowing, eddyingwhen you enter the zendowhat do you do in sitting? Do you take your stickand measure the waterto insure a safe fording,or do you sit amid the streamand let the floodwash over and around youdry and silent within? A reflection on Case 36 of the Iron Flute Koans

    Lou Faber

  • PAYING HOMAGE

    No one thinks it all that strangethat novels featuring James Bondappeared well after Ian Flemingagain made acquaintance with the soil. Nor are we shocked that Conan Doylehas seemingly taken up pen againand brought Holmes back to life,although many find those efforts regrettable. And yet when I take pen to paperand cast line upon line of…

    Lou Faber