an old writer and his words

  • KENSHO

    She curls in my arm, head on my chest, offers a gentle smile which melts me and I stroke her small shoulder, as Sid the Sloth and Manny the Mammoth, two bodhisattvas, smile back at us from the TV screen. Enlightenment isn’t something you seek, it’s a five-year old who sits next to you on the…

    Lou Faber

  • ERGO SUM

    She says she was certain she exists much as she is certain he exists as well. He says she thinks she exists, and thinks he does as well. Descartes, he says was right, at least on that point. She says no, it is obvious, thoughts requires existence, sum ergo cogito, she says, is how it…

    Lou Faber

  • ZAZEN

    Soon I will sit and stare into the wall, into my heart,, into the universe, and will find everything and nothing. But the center of nothing, is everything.

    Lou Faber

  • LOVER

    There is a moment just after the prior moment, when the ticking of the clock on the nightstand is amplified, reverberating off the skylights, when the heat of your body is a blanket from which I never wish to emerge.

    Lou Faber

  • TOKYO SCENES (PART 2)

    Scene 1 From atop the Century Hyatt Shinjuku Chuo Park is a desolate maze of asphalt, its fountains stilled by winter. The horizon is dotted by the cranes, great and small, perched precariously engaged in their manic dance bending and swooping in defiance of the gods. Scene 2 Shinjuku Station is washed by the waves of…

    Lou Faber

  • TOKYO SCENES (PART 1)

    Scene I Garish neon blazes its siren call, Lucky 7777, Vegas Land, Anima Parlor, countless others, and inside the Pachinko machines scream out their riotous cacophony, drowning thought as the balls dance in their maze indifferent to the intent stares of the player, and the smoke which covers the room with its acrid pall. Scene…

    Lou Faber

  • A DIVERSION: GETTING HERE (A JOURNEY IN FOUR SCENES)

    SCENE 1 A fifteen year old boy sits in his Rabbi’s office. They are discussing his someday entering the Reform Rabbinate. The Rabbi supports the idea and tells him that he would be perfect for the role. The Rabbi reaches over to his overburdened bookshelves and pulls out two volumes. Read these first, the Rabbi…

    Lou Faber

  • TEACHER

    My teaching is a drawing made of water, faint when it leaves the pen it will be eaten by the sky, it may fall on the pond amid other drops of rain. If you cup your hands and drink it in it will someday be sprinkled on the earth where it will feed a plant…

    Lou Faber

  • SHRINE

    In the cramped dark little temple the Buddha casts his smile for the duration of a match and then you are returned to the pitch of the life from which you sought solace. Another match, another smile I am here always he whispers, you need only close your eyes to truly see me.

    Lou Faber

  • AN ENDLESS KNOT

    You are surprised when the young man approaches you, his saffron robes a bit faded, his sandals more worn flip-flops, his smiling face almost too happy for a cool morning on the rough pavement of a street in Vienna, cafes pressing the curb. He isn’t begging, not like at home, at least, but he does bow…

    Lou Faber