an old writer and his words

  • A PAUSE

    Now just stop and imagineif one event in your youth had gonein a wholly different direction,where would you be today?Follow this alternative universebounded only by imaginationand such amount of logic as you choose,and create the framework of a lifethat never existed until that moment.If you wish, pick another event,and another until you havea cosmos of…

    Lou Faber

  • TRIO

    I always wondered if the pianisthunched over his keyboard in the frontof the small club, reinventing a melodywe all thought we knew, the bassistsharing the stage providing support,stopped to note the lyrics offered upby the people in the audience as hecontinued to play, and if so, did henote them for future referenceor did he simply…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT WALK

    I walked the cityin the heart of the night,streetlights casting the shadowsof ghosts of those long goneto bed, unknowingthat the city has beengiven over to ravening windsthat find no shelter.I step into an alcoveand the fading lightof the flickering bulb overheadurges me to move onlest she bury mein the darkness of her grave.By day, this…

    Lou Faber

  • THE ALCHEMISTS HAND

    He said that we are an amalgamof nature and nurture, and oftenthere is no real distinction between them.If only that were my case,I am bifurcated between whatI know what I imagine,lived and what I might have,what was imposedon me by otherssome of which others left me Ifor those they call their own.Blood may or may…

    Lou Faber

  • WITH STANDING

    The nurse wanted to knowif I had pain with standing.I thought about this and said“Notwithstanding a silly questionif I say so myself and I do.”“No,” she said smiling, “withstandingyour answer do you or do you not?” ‘I don’t have pain, not with standing.Notwithstanding what shewanted to know so she said,” let’s try this again.Do you…

    Lou Faber

  • AND TONIGHT

    This should be Paris, he thought,dancing alone in the Tuileries, orEngland, looking down on the Thamesperched atop the London Eye.This was how he imagined it, nottrapped in the madding crowd, everyonefrantically multitasking, searchingfor nirvana or a release from boredom,from the quest for monetary meaningthat had trapped them in a maze withno exit or end point,…

    Lou Faber

  • AGAIN, REALLY?

    As you age, and I writefrom increasingly painful personal experience,life becomes ever more paradoxical.Things you once could easily do,wanted to do often, become difficultand some almost impossible(get your mind out of that gutter,I meant things like heavy liftingAnd home maintenance projects).And things you never thoughtyou would ever do becomethe stuff of daily life (just askyour…

    Lou Faber

  • A SMALL WONDER

    It always amazes me thateveryone around me seems to agewhile I know that I have notand that it is the mirror’s liesthat try and make me think I have.True, my body cannot do muchof what it once could but thatI know is less a factor of ageand more one of over use,for even the best…

    Lou Faber

  • AT GRAVESIDE

    It is odd that cemeteries arequite often the site of oration,soliloquies delivered with great emotion,be it love, regret or anger.Often they are paeans or jeremiadsmeant to be delivered in personbut held back until it is only the stonethat bears the brunt of the words.And yet a burden is liftedfrom the speakers for they assumethe dead…

    Lou Faber

  • CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

    Walking back through my lifeI can now begin to see when and wherethings changed, where I changed, wherethe place I thought of as my homebecame alien, altered, as thoughthe weathering of time wore awaywhat I now know were carefully appliedveneers, real enough seeming to meand to others who stopped to visit.And when the music changed…

    Lou Faber