an old writer and his words

  • THREADS

    They keep arriving in my email,sometimes one or two a day,and then nothing for a week or more.I look at them out of curiosity,because I have learned all I wantedsome time ago and they are like icingon a cake I no longer intend to eat.But they are “family” of sorts, distantalways, remote usually, but I…

    Lou Faber

  • TOTALLY UNFAIR

    You realize, of course, that it wasan arbitrary and capricious decisionno matter what you say, making up the rulesas you go, changing them withoutconsulting those of us who are to bemost affected by the changes. Suremy brothers and sisters probably agreed,more for them with me out of the picture,but don’t give me the lecture on…

    Lou Faber

  • IN HIDING

    What is it she is hiding so assiduouslythat she always shields one face whilefreely offering the one we already know.And why all the coming and going, whynot just be like her cousins, alwayspresent until the final moment and thenmaking a grand exit for all to see.She knows she pulls on us, on ouremotions, we mark…

    Lou Faber

  • SIDEWAYS

    the number eightis truly magicalits powersits potentialits varietyinfiniteif onlyyou are willingto look at itsideways

    Lou Faber

  • VULCAN’S FLAMES

    The ark of hope had sailedalmost empty, their realitywas free falling, their dreamsconsumed in the furnaceof their greed, their arrogance.Time was hanging suspended,they were grasping at the handsof the clock perched now inover the growing abyss.Once they had been gods, orimagined themselves so, nowthey were fuel for Vulcan’s flames.Once they were prophetsof an unbounded, unbridled…

    Lou Faber

  • ONE MORE

    He hated the expression “another trip around the sun.” First and foremost, it was arrogant, accurate but arrogant. The universe has a billion billion suns and ours is a bit, wordless player in a great galactic drama. Yes, while we took that trip, that’s like saying that standing still on this old planet you are…

    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

  • THE NEW GODS

    From their two-bedroom apartmenton the outer edge of Cupertino,the Gods evicted from Olympusare creating their pulsating metahell.They know how easily we, lemmingsenchanted by the sparkling void,offer ourselves up in sacrifice, alwayswanting still another gigabyte,entranced by the idea of the Deusex machina, blind to our own truth.They promise us eternity, a heavenof a parallel binary universe,redemption…

    Lou Faber

  • FROM 1 TO 10

    Modern medicine has made great advancesbut there are still things that seemabsolutely, positively medieval.The chairs in the waiting roomborder on almost comfortable,but in the examining room,since you haven’t yet been invitedup onto the padded table,the chairs are utilitarian at best.And then the moment when the docasks about your pain leveland you eventually sort outwhen he…

    Lou Faber

  • NOMENCLATURE

    We really need to stopnaming new plant varietiesand comets after the peoplewho first discovered them.Think about it for a moment –they didn’t invent anything,they just saw what was already there.So let’s agree on a new ruleshall we, plant varieties willhenceforth be named afterrock bands with at leastone gold record, and cometsafter random lines fromeither Hamlet…

    Lou Faber