an old writer and his words

  • SAID THE LITTLE MAN

    NOTE: TODAY’S POST FOLLOWS BELOW: Dear poetry-lovers,          Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following my blog. Some of you have been daily readers since it began 9 years ago, some are more sporadic or more recent followers.  Thank you one and all. As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount…

    Lou Faber

  • I WANT

    I want my poem to scream out so loudthat you will hear it even if you are notpaying attention or are busy with other thingsyou think are more important than poetry. Too often my poems just lie on the paper,or are dead pixels on a screen, whisperingwhat I wanted shouted, but I am so oftena…

    Lou Faber

  • LISTENING

    We should have heardthe blasts of the trumpetsthat morning, encircling us,we caged in, imaginingourselves to be innocents. We should have heardbefore that day, but wehad chosen deafness,and the cries, the threatsof warning wereso easily cast aside. As the walls fellaround us we realizedthat we had no escapeand we cried to our Godas they cried out…

    Lou Faber

  • COLLECTIVE

    Don’t listen when people talkabout collective memories. We both know it is hard enoughremembering what you experienced and in the recalling we add filtersto bend it to how we wish it was. If there were a collective memoryhow could you despise the immigrant who only wants the better lifethat we talk about so much. You…

    Lou Faber

  • WITHOUT EXCEPTION

    The Jewish sages teach us thatwhoever saves one lifeit is as if he saves the world.Try though I might to find it,I cannot locate the exceptionfor those unfortunate enoughto live among others whocommit unspeakable acts,but surely there must be an exception.How else do you explain whytens of thousands of worldswere not saved in Gaza, why…

    Lou Faber

  • SIR, YES SIR

    The hardest part wasn’t the marching,wasn’t the godawful food, although almost so,wasn’t the heat and humidity of San Antonio.It wasn’t the thought that I had nearlyflunked out of college under the sway,or was it swaying away with, recreational drugs,until I cut a deal with the Dean, my futurefor producing a DD-214, an honorable discharge.It wasn’t…

    Lou Faber

  • SOS

    We marched for hours, goingnowhere really, but nowhere wasthe point of the marching so weachieved the goal the Air Force set.We didn’t even think it oddthat they made us shave our heads,so we’d all look like fools,there was a war on and wewere in the military, so wehad already proven that point.We were the smarter…

    Lou Faber

  • LABORING

    There are those few momentswhen they sit on the bermaround the Igloo jug trying to findthe shade from a spindly palm cut backto almost nothing, the sunetching the sky with a molten heatthat melts away the few cloudsfoolish enough to appear.One keeps an eye outfor the supervisor knowinglunch is hours off and there areno breaks…

    Lou Faber

  • SOLDIERS

    We marchedfor hoursgoingnowhere We satswelteringin classroomspretendingto learn Six weekslaterthey told uswe werewarriors Our haircould beginto grow back Heavensave us fromendless war,fromourselves. First published in Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Vol. 13A publication of the Laurel Review

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS NOT: AN APOLOGY

    This is an apology I never wantedor thought I would have to write butnow, my grandchildren, it is necessary. This is not the world I wantedto leave to you, what I had hopedwas a world at peace, a world whereyou could be anything without beingjudged or shunned, where wordshad meaning and books were treasures. Instead…

    Lou Faber