an old writer and his words

  • GET IT RIGHT

    Anthracite is a type of coal,he definitively says, and Iam tempted to tell him thataa and pahoehoe are typesof Hawaiian lava, but I don’tbecause I am reasonably certainthat he wouldn’t care, or thathe has an issue with volcanic islandsbut doesn’t want to discuss it further.He will also tell me that Gitegais the capital of Burundi…

    Lou Faber

  • FOLLOW THE TRAIL

    To say that I am a wanderer isto vastly overstate the reality.I have wandered quite a bitin my life, but that wanderingwas always predicated on happenstanceand a true wanderer, by definition,wanders with the intent of doing so.I was never looking for anythingmerely a sense of direction, an ideaof how I got to this point, whatforces…

    Lou Faber

  • ACT 1

    His life was a collapsing theaterof the absurd and he was holding on tightlybut it was slipping through his fingers.It was not supposed to be this way,this was not the play he envisioned, yethe was here, in a cold table read, andnone of the assembled were certain wherethe evolving script might take them.He had imagined…

    Lou Faber

  • JUST STOP

    “The problem,” she said, “the reasonyou cannot sleep through the night,is simple and easily fixed if youonly follow my advice for which,as you know, you are paying dearly.”This was what I had been waitingto hear after so many therapy sessions.I begged her to go on, thinking whatI would do with the money Ihad been spending…

    Lou Faber

  • AROMA

    When I smell the aroma of Nag Champaincense I think of you and I vow to lightsome several times a week.Do not ask why I think of youwith Nag Champa and not cedarwoodfor that will remain a secret,the key to which I do not have.I will burn cedarwood other daysand you will take a seat…

    Lou Faber

  • LINGZHAO’S “BRIGHT AND CLEAR”

    If your teacher asks youwhat you wish to learnabout Buddhism,what do you answer?If you ask your teacherwhat he wishes to teachyou about Buddhismhe may say nothing.He has given youa great lesson,learn it well. A reflection on case 88 of Shinji Shobogenzo 真字正法眼蔵 (True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber

  • WHAT ISN’T LEFT BEHIND

    When a poet dies they will be mournedby those who loved them,those who admired them.Obituaries and eulogieswill be offered, tearswill be shed and memorieswill begin to slowly fadeafter the short possiblesale spike has run its course.I am no differentthan all of the other mournersbut I take an extra momentto mourn all of the wordsand the…

    Lou Faber

  • NO AUDITION

    It was a roleshe never anticipatednever wanted, leftto her sisters to carrythe genetic line forward.And she spentthe last half-centuryof her lifetrying to forgetthe role she playedand had to abandon.Although she now istwo decades goneon the second Mondayof May I now stopbless her and mourn herfor performing the rolethat brought me into being

    Lou Faber

  • TWO HAIKU

    A lone ginkgo leafclings to the now barren branchdefying winter. Great blue Herons stareat the slowly passing cloudsobscuring their home.

    Lou Faber

  • REFRAMED DREAMS

    In my reframed dreamI am sitting in a smoky bar,bathed in the neon of Roppongi.with the sour smell of Sapporo and Asahiwafting up from the beer-damp floor.I don’t want to be here, wantto be miles and miles from this placein the shadows of Mount Wakakusawalking slowly through Todai-jiin search of something I haveyet to find,…

    Lou Faber