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ON THE MENU
The waiter we know so well tells tonight’s server that we are poets and she should ask us to order in iambic pentameter. We write him a limerick, which she delivers with a smile before returning with our wine and a pad to take our order. She seems somewhat sad when our order lacks rhythm…
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NATURALIA NON SUNT TURPIA
When did we stop being of the soil and begin to fear it, to tell our children not to touch the ground, it is dirty where once it was only dirt, and we put in our mouths, from time to time if only to drive our mothers crazy. She says if you are going to…
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HILLEL AT THE GOLDEN DRAGON
I am honored that this poem was just published in the Fall/Winter Issue of the Atlanta Review, I had dinner the other night with Rav Hillel in a small Chinese place just off Mott Street. I asked him what it was like in the afterlife, after all the years. It gets a bit boring, he…
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KEYS
He sits, suited in black, with 88 keys at his command, and we fall silent. He opens the lock of joy, the lock of sadness, the lock of elation, the lock of tears, the lock of laughter, the lock of darkness, the lock of light, the lock of surprise, the lock of compassion, the lock…
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HIGH WIRE
It is a precarious balance, really, more an exercise in tottering and hearing than in standing still. Some prefer stasis, others, I included, find that leads inevitably to a loss of energy, to an entropy from which it is difficult to escape. I don’t walk along the edge of the precipice, but I do. peer…
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DAIZUI SEES A TURTLE 鐵笛倒吹 十七
If you see a turtle does it seem odd it wears bones outside? Does the turtle live within these bones and where do you go to hide from bright light.. If you place a sandal on your head which end will be walking? A reflection on Case 17 of the Iron Flute Koans
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ADAGE
You want to yell at him, tell him to stop, that it is too soon, that he is not ready, cannot be, won’t be for months to come, but you know he will not listen to you standing, gesticulating, imagining a stone in your hand, shattering the glass walls, the crackling, gaining his full attention…
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FINDING
Even when I was briefly in Edinburgh I dreamed of walking the streets of Lisbon or Porto looking into the faces of older men and wondering if this one was my father. the father I had never seen, never known. Was the one my Jewish mother described in detail to the social worker who took…
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MORNING READING
You read the obituaries every day not only for the affirmation that you are not listed among them The key five words there are not only for the affirmation, particularly upon hearing the gentle man you liked, that you valued as a friend and craftsman is gone, but you didn’t say goodbye, that you thought…
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THE SENTENCE
I was honored to have this poem recently published by Please See Me, 2019 Issue 3. You can see the original here (and other work by some fine writers: https://pleaseseeme.com/issue-3/poetry/the-sentence-louis-faber “Probable metastatic lesions secondary to breast cancer.” Complex words set at the bottom of a page, impenetrable jargon. Two spots where pelvis and spine are…
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an old writer and his words 