an old writer and his words

  • WATCHING

    We stand together on the precipiceknowing soon nothing will be as it wasfor her and I, a supportive observer only.In moments the world she knew willcollapse possibly, replaced by somethingno one has been able to describe to her.She is excited for this new world butthere is a fear she cannot shake for sheis venturing where…

    Lou Faber

  • LONGER

    Some may wonder why, lately,it is taking me forever to reada relatively short novel when Inormally read at warp speed.The last time this happenedit was either Calvino’s IfOn A Winter Night . . . orperhaps Michael Ondaatje’sThe English Patient bothof which presented the sameobstacle that I could not clear.With those books and Rulfo’sPedro Paramo I…

    Lou Faber

  • NOAA’S ARK

    The rain finally fell today, a delugeworthy of Noah but NOAA assures usthis is only a three day storm and the nextthirty-seven will not mirror it, at leastnot fully they think they believe.The weather here, the outer skinof nature, is too often a petulant childforever not satisfied with how things are,wanting things different, wantingmore, wanting…

    Lou Faber

  • ZERO

    It begana cloudless skyand two dogs runningdown the nearly empty street.It begana sudden heaterupting everywhereblown forwardinto suddenly parched groundunable to look upat the great cloud risingIt begansweeping upwarda new suncasting the oldin a shroudof ancestors.It beganthe vomitinguncontrollablein wavesebbing, neverrecedingIt begantwisted hulksragged monumentsa screamtearing earsmembranes rupturedIt beganwith an ending First Published in Ionosphere, Vol. 1, Issue…

    Lou Faber

  • LISTEN UP

    The cat says thatwe need to talkbut my language skillsare still lackingso she will writeher thoughts onmy arm with a claw.

    Lou Faber

  • FATHERING

    There is a certain cruelty in knowingwhere my birth father is buried, a pictureof his headstone in the National Cemetery,his face as I know it cropped from a group photoof his unit while stationed in New Hampshire.The cruelty is not in that fact, or that I havea picture of the grave of my first adoptivefather…

    Lou Faber

  • NANSEN’S PEONY

    If a master holdsa rose in frontof you and asks“what do you see?”how will you answer.If you say you seethe world and allthat is in it he willleave you to your practice. A reflection on Case 91 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • WHOSE FAULT?

    You lay on the lanai paversin the shadow of the tableunder the watchful eyeand ever prodding pawof the cat into whose territoryyou have so boldly encroached.You say that it is not the faultof your kind that ours were evictedfrom the Garden, and of courseyou are correct, but it no longerreally matters, does it, allof us,…

    Lou Faber

  • I PLAY THE FOOL

    On more than one occasion she had characterized him as a loveable fool fit for a Shakespearean comedy. Of course when she said this he bristled. That was the required response to the characterization, else he willingly adopt the role in perpetuity. But deep within himself he knew there was more truth than perhaps even…

    Lou Faber

  • CRANING

    I wait patiently for the wingsto move, as though attachedto a butterfly slowly emergingfrom her too brief chrysalis home.I want to feel the air shiftever so gently as shelifts into a cloudless sky.I want to marvel atthe grace she showsswooping overhead,then alighting once again.But I am no God,no origami masterand so my cranes sitwith their…

    Lou Faber