an old writer and his words

  • BORDER

    He wants to know why we draw a distinction between dreams and what we like to call reality, as if the former is somehow less than real. We want to laugh at him, but we listen anyway. If all my senses end up in my mind then all that is real is real only in…

    Lou Faber

  • THOSE WHO CAN’T DO (OR TEACH)

    “You know,” she said, “it is the critics, they are the real problem, all holy and self-proclaimed arbiters of taste, deciding what is and is not art, as if God spoke late one night and declared to each one that he or she and only he or she would determine what is art.” I wanted…

    Lou Faber

  • BSOD U SOB

    The screen, a shade of blue you have come to hate, stares back at you defiantly. You expected something like this, though there is never good reason for it. You check your calendar and clear the next two days of all non-critical items. You adjust the chair carefully, for it will be your home for…

    Lou Faber

  • MORTALITY

    Before you wish for immortality carefully consider all the consequences. It’s true you will avoid the fires of hell and the lawyers and politicians who make up a surprising portion of the populace, but you’ll also never pass through the pearly gates, to languish in the esteemed company of poets and musicians who will, at…

    Lou Faber

  • NARA

    It was inside Nara that it finally slipped away. Its tether had grown ever weaker, the first slip was decades before, a book, brief meetings an answerless question. It stretched further in Tokyo, basin incense under the watchful third eye and hung perilously by fewer and fewer threads until, with the monks’ gentle bow, it…

    Lou Faber

  • THE SAVAGE BREAST

    You must pause and marvel, if you will, that only the flute – from the simple wooden to the most elegant metal – when played by skilled hands, can transport the listener. Some would say to heaven, others to hell, and often at exactly the same moment.

    Lou Faber

  • DESHAN’S “NEITHER ASKING NOR NOT ASKING”

    If you very much want something you must ask for it clearly, but if you ask for it, it will be denied to you. If you do not ask for it, you may be certain you will not get it no matter how much you want it. If you sit and think about this, you…

    Lou Faber

  • BRIEF THOUGHTS (3 HAIKU)

    In the sunlit park the small dog watches the man go fetch the thrown ball Maple leaves emerge almost certain that winter is now history A rain of petals cherry snow covers the ground we await the fruit.

    Lou Faber

  • IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?

    He said to her, “you know it really irritates me how you always seem to repeat yourself. Say it once and that’s enough.” She paused, thought about his comment, then said, “You know, despite what you say, I don’t, I don’t really, but nuance is something that always seems just beyond your comprehension.” He bristled,…

    Lou Faber

  • BEGINNING

    “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good.” — B’Reshit (Genesis) 1:3-4 I mean God is omnipotent and omniscient, so why create it if God had even the slightest doubt that it was good, and is God even capable of doubt. But that…

    Lou Faber