an old writer and his words

  • 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

  • SEASIDE

    The ocean wind sweeps through the citya sudden rain washes sidewalk, shop, and street,carries both dreams and sins back to the sea. For the young child time slides by easily,life a campaign that allows no retreat.The ocean wind sweeps through the city, rattles church windows, so that all can seethe priest stripped of dogma. Christ…

    Lou Faber

  • VICARIOUSLY

    I wonder how my life would bedifferent if just once duringmy childhood I had imaginedthere was a ghost under my bedor a skeleton buried in the garden.I read books with thosescenes and I felt deprived.My friends said that I lackedimagination, and I was ableto imagine them fallingvictim to ghosts that inhabitedtheir homes, were carried offby…

    Lou Faber

  • CHARLESTON, WV

    Half of me, according to the twistedstrands of deoxyribonucleic acid,has its roots in Liskovo, which would bea simple matter were there not townsby that name in Poland and Belarus,and none in Lithuania, the language of my genes. All of this is preparatory to my visitnext week to the city where my mother,grandparents and great grandparentsare…

    Lou Faber

  • ORIGIN

    I am told that I should writeabout my origins, that is the stuffthat long poems are made of, orrather the soil from which they bloom. I have written about my birth motherand visited her grave in West Virginiaseen those of my grandparents, meta cousin, I’ve written all of that. So its time to write aboutmy…

    Lou Faber

  • FOSSIL FUEL

    It should give you pauseto consider that, in the midstof boundless greed, enmeshedin the near cult of self, rushingalways to go nowhere quickly,certain the problems of the world,can be solved tomorrow, usingresources that may never bereplenished or substituted for, when we are dead and buried,we will be the fossil fuelsthat future generationsrightfully shun in horror.

    Lou Faber

  • PARENT AGE

    I have two mothers, now both dead,I have three fathers, one unknown, one buriedoutside Washington and one lostin a corner of his shrinking mind.I am growing older, I have achesand clicks and pops and groans,which each remind me that Iam aware and alive and thatisn’t a bad way to start a new day.

    Lou Faber