an old writer and his words

  • RECENT MEMORIES

    Looking through your wedding albumtwenty years after a midlife marriageyou are quickly awash in emotions.There is the joy of the moment, magnifiedduring the succeeding years, andthe rekindled memories of peopleand moments of the day forgottenor lost in the tumult that is attendanton any wedding, first or second.But there is a deep sadness as well,at those…

    Lou Faber

  • DEPARTURE

    She is leaving too soon.We know she is leaving,we know there is nothingthat can be done to changeher departure, only the timeremains uncertain, but nowit is clear it will be soon. It is not right or fair, we know,but that has little to do withwhen one must depart,time and fate are ficklein that way, and…

    Lou Faber

  • RAZAN’S ARISING AND VANISHING

    Thoughts comeand thoughts go.You know this, just asyou come and you go.But where do you go,where do thoughts goor were they never real.And if they were not realare you real, orare you a thought? A reflection on case 43 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • NEBULAS

    I can still recall the hoursspent dragging the giantDobsonian Telescope from the houseinto the yard, back or frontdepending on his demands.Then together we would aimthe beast, a simple tube really,with precisely placed lensesand mirrors, and he wouldpeer through the eyepieceand tell me what we were staring at.Actually he was staring, but hewould give me a…

    Lou Faber

  • WHERE?

    If here,nowis no longerhere, nowas you read thisthen whereis there?Of course neitherhere nor nowstill existsonly words do.So perhapsthere is no here,there is no nowand we muststop thinkingof time, of placeand simply be.

    Lou Faber

  • YOUR TURN

    They said that we onlywanted to tear things down, thingsthat they treasured, wanted to maintain.That was only half true, becausewe knew that to build whatwas needed, you had to tear downwhat was there that would not,could not, be integrated.We did tear down someof those things they valued,but we built things that werebetter for the majority…

    Lou Faber

  • IN THE CITY OF DREAMS

    my demonssink into the abyssof memoryand drownin the hollowbetween her breasts,she touches my armand presses backwe are Siamese fetusesfloating untetheredin the sea of night,I can smell the sweet soapand taste the sweatbeading on hershoulder blades,I brush my fingersacross her thighand cling to sleep. First published in Discretionary Love, June 2023https://www.discretionarylove.com/in-the-city-of-dreams-louis-faber/

    Lou Faber

  • GENESIS

    Every time I see a doveI look twice to seeif by chance it has an olive branch,actually any branch, claspedin its claws, for that would meanthe storm of the last years,the wars, the abject poverty,the amassing of wealthfor its own sake at the neverending expense of others,was coming to an end,that the peace we all…

    Lou Faber

  • IN DREAMS

    In my youth so many of my dreamsseemed full length novels, on occasionsome were serialized over several nights.That did not last of course andas I aged medicine stepped into keep my pressure in checkand the magical diuretics decidedI could get by with dream novellas,which were certainly preferableto the other option, fabula interrumpirBut I continued to…

    Lou Faber

  • NANYO’S WASHBASIN

    If you sayyou have seenthe Buddhayou are blind.If you sayyou are a Buddhayou are deluded.If you sayyou wish to bea Buddha youwill never be. A reflection on Case 42 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber