an old writer and his words

  • ANTIQUEING

    Mother was an inveterate attendeeat flea markets and Goodwill storesand I would accompany her.She had a knack for antiques, wouldrummage for stereopticon slides,player piano rolls and anything elseshe thought belonged in the family roomshe had taken back to the late 19th century.She scouted the stalls, the darkcorners where Goodwill put thingsthey didn’t think would sell,…

    Lou Faber

  • THINGS I SHOULD HAVE TOLD MY SONS

    1.You can lead a horse to waterbut if he is agoraphobicyou will be walking home 2.You can runbut doing so on icewill lead to useless bruisingand broken bones 3.a bird in the handwill not be terribly happyand could shitall over your new shoes 4.All good things comeand most go,but bad things lingerif you allow it…

    Lou Faber

  • THE EASE OF FORGETTING

    I have little memory of the manwho was my first adoptive fatherand none of his funeral, two-year-olds,my mother said, should notknow of death at that age.Nor did I attend my grandmother’s,she the mother of my second adoptive fatherbecause 12-year-old shouldn’thave the memory of funerals,according to my mother.I did attend her mother’s funeral,had to because I…

    Lou Faber

  • NOT THAT

    A writing teacher I admireonce told me that my truecreative self would only beunleashed if I stoppedwriting about what I knewand began writingabout what I didn’t know.I knew what he meantbut I can be a literal soulall too often, with yearsof practicing law and inthat state of mind I knewI was doomed to failurefor if…

    Lou Faber

  • VIMALAKURTI’S NONDUALITY

    In your searchfor enlightenmentyou may comeupon a gate.Do you enter by itor do you leave by it,or do you simplysit atop itin peaceful silence. A reflection on case 48 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • THRIFT STORE

    It was small and a bit cramped,down thankfully solid stairsin the basement of the church.Thrift stores, charitable ones,tend to inhabit basements as ifthe red dress, clearly worn butwith tangoes left in herwasn’t ready for the light of day.And on a nearby rack isthe Army jacket, still neatly pressedit’s buttons shiny saying Inever saw battle, the…

    Lou Faber

  • LURKING

    You lurk behind meas I sit at the islandboth the messenger and the message.You appear magicallyon my chair back, your tailwrapping my neck, a mink like scarfregardless of the temperature.I hear a slowly growing rumbleas if with my ear to the groundI can sense a distant temblor.And then there is the flickof dampened sandpaper on…

    Lou Faber

  • LOBSTER SHACK

    It squatted on the cornerbacked by an L shaped stripplaza, a grocery store, shoes,pool supplies, a bank, all datedand wholly nondescript.It was a gas station, major brand,four gas pumps, one dieselbut the service bays had been guttedof their large liftsthat oncegave the mechanics accessto the bellies of the metal beastsand now housed two giant tanksand…

    Lou Faber

  • A SPECIAL MOMENT

    I have the great pleasure today to announce that my wife, my writing partner and my muse, Elaine Heveron’s latest poetry collection “Notes from Paradise” has been released today by Plain View Press. Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the Press, it is the work of a poet who inspires me daily in more…

    Lou Faber

  • NEWBORN

    When you first pick her upshe is so much smallerthan you had imagined,fitting comfortably into the crookof an elbow, your handunder her knees.She raises a thin armand stares into andthen through youwith navy blue eyesthat you carry awayin your dreams.She is not fragile,that is the wrong wordfor her size beliesa strength she shareswith you, a…

    Lou Faber