an old writer and his words

  • THE VEIL OF TIME

    I still search for you behind the veilof time; I cannot look away.I wonder what you saw that night,what you felt in that unexpected,unwanted moment you couldn’t escape.I know I am struggling to reach intoa world I do not yet wish to enter,but all I recall are your eyes, notas they were that night but…

    Lou Faber

  • ARTISTIC SENSE

    Perhaps the moon should learnwhat so many artists know,that it is more enticingif the body is not blatantly displayed.Certainly the fully nude bodydraws the eye, but showing less,a hint of flesh, of thigh or breast,leaves the viewer wanting more.But the moon cannot seem to helpherself, always the slow stripteaseuntil she is fully bare and thenembarrassed…

    Lou Faber

  • A PAUSE

    Now just stop and imagineif one event in your youth had gonein a wholly different direction,where would you be today?Follow this alternative universebounded only by imaginationand such amount of logic as you choose,and create the framework of a lifethat never existed until that moment.If you wish, pick another event,and another until you havea cosmos of…

    Lou Faber

  • YAOSHAN’S DISCOURSE

    If you ask a masterto give you the dharmahe may hand you sutras.If you ask him to explainthe meaning of the dharmathe wise master will sitbefore you and say nothing.He has given youthe greatest gift.What will you dowith what youhave been given? Reflection on Case 79 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye) 正法眼蔵

    Lou Faber

  • THE RIVER OF SADNESS

    I have written poems about my grandfathersand the lives I was told they led,having met none of them, but I knewI was appropriating their stories, claimingthem as my legacy although all I was doingwas adopting them, as their children hadadopted me, none of the stories truly mine,and I only family by the thinnest of tiesthat…

    Lou Faber

  • FOR A WORD

    Consider for a moment justhow different things might betoday, perhaps only in small ways,if one particular Mary hadnever been sainted, for thenthe asylum in London might wellhave had a different name, notSt. Mary’s of Bethlem for Bethlehem.If that had happened there wouldbe no bedlam in the world, tothe obvious frustration of politicianswho would have to…

    Lou Faber

  • A SAVAGE BREAST

    They are very different from you and Iand despite the differences we need them.They fill a void we never knew was thereand we note their absence somewhat painfully.You have no choice but to accept themfor who they are, their quirks, smalland major can be tolerated, the price you payfor the benefit you know you will…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT AT THE ALLUSIVE TAVERN

    He had been sitting there for hours, days,how many “last calls” had he heard?He watched Beckett and Eliot come and gobut he sat waiting, patiently, no Godot for him.He had long since lost his now empty pen,his pockets grown stuffed with damp cocktailnapkins, the story of his life bleeding slowlyinto the worn fabric of the…

    Lou Faber

  • FAIR WARNING

    There are many lessons you learnduring even a moderately full life.Some of great value, others trifles,but each unique in some way, henceit being a lesson at all and notan echo of what you already knew.One lesson I clearly recall is that younever, after eating a meal of Japanese foodwith far too much sake, tell the…

    Lou Faber

  • DOWN UNDER

    Whenever I heard Rolf Harris sing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport,” I had to wonder just what the kangaroo would make of that request. They aren’t the most patient of mammals and I knew few people who could hope to outrun one if it were intent on making a getaway. And I have never known…

    Lou Faber