an old writer and his words

  • SMALL REFLECTION

    It is that moment when the moon is a glaring crescent, slowly engulfed by the impending night — when the few clouds give out their fading glow In the jaundiced light of the sodium arc street lamp.- It nestles the curb — at first a small bird — when touched, a twisted piece of root…

    Lou Faber

  • ALOFT

    She imagined what it must be like to have wings. She always wanted to be unmoored from the ground, to be free of its incessant pull, to look down on it from high above, and not with aid of contraption, just her, arms outstretched. The ground was a prison. She could move about, yes, but…

    Lou Faber

  • ALTERNATE HISTORY

    My mother wanted to tell me of my great-grandmother, a woman she barely knew, but who she imagined more fully that life itself would ever have allowed. History, in her hands was malleable, you could shape it in ways never happened. She wanted to tell me but she knew that her grandmother wouldn’t approve of…

    Lou Faber

  • DEPARTED

    Catherine Camden is quite dead, so secure in her peace that her parting has faded and all that remains is her name, and that too, will soon be gone as she was, slowly devoured by the winds. The white swans on the Thames pay her no notice.

    Lou Faber

  • BUT FEAR ITSELF

    He only wants to know , he says what she fears most,what is her phobia, everyone has at least one, he claims. She thinks about this for a while then smiles and says her one true fear is called phobophobia, and that she says positively terrorizes her. He looks confused and she sees it. I…

    Lou Faber

  • STARING

    She stares at you, unwavering. You find this strange, wanting to see something more in her looks, but you get nothing from her, as you have gotten nothing from so many others before her. You know men are as capable of such stares as she, but you don’t tend to see them, your own gender…

    Lou Faber

  • A SHORT LONG LINE

    There is a statue of William Penn atop the city hall in Philadelphia seeming to stare down over the city with bronze eyes incapable of seeing. Hagar wandered the wilderness after she was evicted by Abraham at Sarah’s urging, the price of jealousy, with bread and water and the promise of a great nation. It…

    Lou Faber

  • EARLY MORNING

    Early this morning as I drove through the mist that clings to Portland in March like a child’s yellow slicker, I thought of you, home, asleep on our bed, my side tidy, no faint indentation of life, and I thought of the thousands who have died to date in Iraq, who never again will leave…

    Lou Faber

  • MIDDLE C

    Mrs. Weiskopf lived in a small cottage Mrs. Weiskopf taught piano in her living room. Mrs. Weiskopf had no first name, even checks were to be made payable to Mrs. Weiskopf. Mrs. Weiskopf grew suddenly old, some said, to full fit into her name, no one could remember her ever being young. Mrs. Weiskopf said…

    Lou Faber

  • SHE HOPES

    Faith is something, she says, that everyone has, it is just that some don’t recognize it, even while the coin is flipping through the air and the desired outcome is whispered in the mind. She believes that life is a joy, but that it is also heaven’s waiting room, and while there may be a…

    Lou Faber