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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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LE CINÉMA
Watching French movies you know why Hollywood seems less real than the giant letters stuck like pushpins into a hillside. Even in translation laughter remains universal but you begin to think in word pictures that have utterly no meaning le neige gris la belle chat la lumiere fantastique and you imagine dreaming in a tongue…
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BLIND SEARCH
She wants to know where to look and thinks it must be either without or within, she assumes a Christian looks outward, a Buddhist within, and every other faith either aligns with one or plumbs the middle. She is searching for the answer to the inevitable question, the question that cannot be answered. She asks…
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DRY CREEK 鐵笛倒吹 四十
When you are parched and come upon a dry creek bed will you assume there is water flowing freely beneath the soil and rocks, and how will you drink it? If you give up your thirst your attachment to life may wash downstream and the bitter waters may run both sweet and deep. You may…
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WEAVING
She plucks the odd loose thread puts it on the table and finds another and a bit of what could be twine. She weaves them together loosely, with seeming abandon until they are an ill formed braid barely hanging together, a jumble of color and fabric, a true hodge-podge. But when she says to all…
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HUMOR
Humor is highly subjective and what will make you laugh is just as likely to elicit a groan, or worse, from me. Things I find funny you are likely to think absurd or foolish. It has always been this way and this is how it will likely continue, so funny will remain the final proof…
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SUMMER, THEN
For three days I was a short order cook a change from my table duties when the regular guy decided that a night of drinking didn’t end when the bar closed and broke back in through the rotting back door that was always next on the list of things to be fixed. The owner, my…
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HANGING BY A THREAD
In Riga, my grandfather was a master tailor, the great and the rich would come to his shop some bringing bolts of fine cloth and others trusting him knowing that wools and silks were not beyond his reach. Even after they marked his home as that of the Jew, the Captain, who rode through the…
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WINTER MEMORY
As I stare out the window and watch the snow slowly build on the limbs of the now barren sugar maple, painting it with a whiteness that bears heavily giving the smaller branches a better view of the ground in which their fruit of the summer lies buried. I am forced to wonder if the…
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