an old writer and his words

  • NATURE’S VACUUM

    Nature abhors a vacuum a fact not lost on God, who spent considerable time filling voids and creating vessels, pots  and the odd variety of containers, some quite will suited to their contents and others, man as a shining example, illogical, and worse still, leaky so that once packed with thought and emotion it spends…

    Lou Faber

  • CENSORS

    They stole his words, carefully sidling up to him when he was distracted, and plucking one left hanging from a pocket or in his room at night slid one from the dresser. He never saw them and never suspected. They toyed with him, for a while taking only verbs, leaving him transfixed and cursing his…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS POEM

    will not marvel at the dawn will not stare at the ebb and flow of the sea will not see ghosts in the clouds over Dachau  will sit on the page staring back will remember the torn wallpaper will cry out, always unanswered  will not trace your spine, lingering on each vertebra will not make…

    Lou Faber

  • MUSINGS

    The poet muses: I wonder if a cat purrs when no one is in the same room. I suppose we could put in a microphone and find out. Schrödinger comments: if there is no microphone the cat is purring and the cat is not purring, and what is the half- life of a poem.

    Lou Faber

  • IN MEMORIUM: NAMELESS ONE

    My muse drowned in a torrent of words. I buried her on page 243 of War and Peace. Kafka read the eulogy, while Ferlinghetti dozed in the third pew. I sat Shiva for a week and the guests brought endless casseroles of Westlake, Cornwell and Kellerman. I waited for Ondaatje to sooth my grief, but…

    Lou Faber

  • CRIMES AGAINST WORDS

    I spent considerable time this morning murdering my darlings, though I am convinced the time would have been better spent hunting down old Quiller-Couch, but his advice given, he had left town. It wouldn’t have been an issue, really but in my damned manuscript, I had a gun early on. It was just to be…

    Lou Faber

  • TAKING

    You can take my sight, but my mind will still see what it must, and my fingers will become eyes. You can take my hearing, I will imagine what I must, and my eyes will become ears. You can take my tongue, but my body will shout what I must, and my hands will speak…

    Lou Faber