Time

June 8, 2023

WIDOWER

In the cold night
of another winter
he stares out
across the barren fields
which have long forgotten
the taste of the sun.
He watches carefully
for a sign
but the naked branch
denies the breeze.
He remembers
how it once was
in the heat
of the dying fire
the sweetness of her lips
lingering on his tongue.
She is gone, has been
so long, her face
is hidden
by the gauzy veil
of time.
He awaits
the edge of dawn
that sleeps eternally
beyond the horizon.

First appeared in North of Oxford, May 2023
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/two-poems-by-louis-faber/

June 7, 2023

SO TO SPEAK

One of the obvious problems
with growing older is the tendency
to begin using phrases you always detested
when young: “back in the day,” and it’s
equivalents maddened you in your youth
and are now a common element of your vernacular.

Worse still is the knowledge that the days
which you seem to lovingly recall
weren’t all that good as you lived them,
rendered less so, you then believed, by
your parents’ endless references
to the good old days, when you knew
that days were fixed periods, an astronomical
phenomenon, and there was nothing
the least bit good or bad about them.

But you stop and take solace that
the grimaces of your grandchildren’s faces
when you use the expression will one day,
soon enough, be given over to their use.

June 1, 2023

A CITY OUT THERE

Somewhere out there
in a city struggling
there is a man dancing
in the reflected light
of a street lamp
to the sound of the wind,
there is a couple
caressing each other,
wishing for just one
cigarette,
there is a baby
calling for its mother
for a meal,
there is a car
parked in a driveway
its lights fading
into the bleakness,
there is a neon sign
flashing OPEN
into the void of night,
there is a man
sitting on a bed
begging for sleep.

First appeared in North of Oxford, May 2023
https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/two-poems-by-louis-faber/

May 27, 2023

UNDERWOOD

When I stood in Hemingway’s study
in Key West, I was certain that
the old Underwood portable probably had
at least one if not more
great novels in it, and I
would gladly be the one to unburden it.
Then I paused to wonder
wouldn’t Ernest have taken his
Underwood portable with him
to Ketchum, Idaho, and how could
Mary be sure none of his blood
was splattered on to it, and if so
the one in the study in Key West
was probably bought at an antique store
sold to them by some failed writer
who had given up on it, or on writing,
with no great literary works lying
in wait, just the mundane, and I
have long mastered that alone.

May 21, 2023

CALLING

As I age, I more willingly accede
to the sirens call of sleep
for as night washes over me
pulling up its blanket of stars
she takes me on a voyage
to destinations she will
not disclose until our arrival.
The journey may be pleasant
or the seas of night can be
roiling, but her grip is firm.
But in her never certain world
age can slough off, fall away
until my body and its increasing
frailties and limitations slip away
and my youth is no longer
a memory, but on this night
or that, it is my new if transient reality.
But I dare not cling to it, for
the sun will intercede again
and drag me back to the body
I so willingly escape each night.

May 8, 2023

THE ULTIMATE PATH IS WITHOUT DIFFICULTY

How long have you
wandered about searching
for the correct path?
Clearly you have not
found it but you refuse
to give up the search
certain it is there.
Will you recognize it
if you stumble across it?
How do you decide
where you should look?
Look down, you are
standing on it as you have
been since you began.

A reflection on Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku 碧巌録)

May 7, 2023

RECESSION

The lake is slowly receding, fading,
the lake we created arrogantly
assuming that when it came
to nature, we could be godlike.
It’s withdrawal has revealed
cars, boats and bodies
we had not expected there,
put by intention or accident,
laid bare by nature, once
our devoted servant we imagined
then a prophet we so callously ignored, now
in a retribution carefully ordained,
the angel of destruction
visiting singular plagues
of drought upon us, and we know
there are other plagues in store
unless we do what we should have
some time ago, and we know we will
collectively suffer for the obstinacy
of the few who value greed so highly.

May 4, 2023

UPWARD

The young child stares up into the sky
and sees in the infinite space
countless worlds take form and then die.

On the mesa coyotes cry
seeing gods in what men deface
the young child stares up into the sky

hears his ancestors’ mournful reply
in an atom’s interstitial space
countless worlds take form and then die.

Inside he sees his parents embrace
he would never think to ask them why
the young child stares up into the sky

At the edge of the sun, great planes fly
drop their payloads, return to their base
countless worlds take form and then die.

Tanks and Humvees simply mystify
as young soldiers, brothers wave goodbye
the young child stares up into the sky
countless worlds take form and then die.

First Appeared in The Globe Review, Issue 2, April 2023
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4f02f9b80a.html

May 3, 2023

PEKING

Chi-Chi was a cute peke
in a very “runt of the litter”
sort of way, cuddly but
hardly the show dog
her breeders had intended.
I asked why she was called
Chi-Chi and my father searched
and showed me her AKC
papers, with the full name
that would’ve made those
of Spanish royalty
pause to consider the brevity
of their seemingly endless names.
She was a simple joy, followed me
around like a furry ankle bracelet.
She loved most everyone, she
was loved in return, save
for the always angry neighbor
and for him she transmuted
into a true lion dog of China
guarding the gates of the palace.