conversation

May 19, 2023

JUST LIKE THAT

“And just like that,” he said. “Just like that,” she replied. “Are you certain, I wouldn’t want to go off half cocked?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t almost certain, would I,” was her retort. “But almost certain isn’t absolutely certain,” he noted. “As you well know, nothing is absolutely certain until it happens. And it hasn’t happened or we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?” She walked toward the door and he said loudly, “so you’re walking away from this conversation. Just like that?” Looking back she said, “just like that.”

February 12, 2023

GOOD RIDDANCE

I still marvel at the way
the mind can rewrite
the narrative arc of memories,
taking away sharp edges,
eroding or erasing some
too painful to relive, and
bringing others out
from deep storage, some
largely forgotten, to be
battled with in dreams,
demons wrestled to submission.

In my dreams I have had
a final conversation with
my step-sibling, who
told me of my father’s
death in a text message,
who never delivered my
nominal share of either
parents estate, who made
it clear I did not matter,
and in the dream I
pronounced him
dead to me and buried him
in a place my memory
can and will not visit.

October 12, 2022

AFOOT, A CITY

As you walk the streets
of a city like New York,
you hear a polyglot of languages,
and closing your eyes you
might have no idea where you were.

Listen carefully, eavesdrop
on conversations, imagine the stories
they are telling, the joys
and heartbreak laid bare before you,
half heard, half filled in
to make the story palatable to you.

Life in the city is life in a wholly
parallel universe, one in which
the characters speak only sound bites
and all meaning is transient
in the ear of the beholder.

September 29, 2022

APPROACHING NIGHT

Arising into night
the departing sun
tangos away with its cloud,
memories soon forgotten.

Other dancers take the stage,
now a romance, now
a war dance, feathers raised
in prayer to unseen gods.

Night will soon bring
its curtain across this stage,
the avian casts’ final bows taken
the theater will darken, awaiting
another performance,
a new script tomorrow,
but for this solitary moment
of frozen grace, it is we
who write the conversation,
our lines sung by actors who
know only nature’s
unrelenting song.

First Published in Half Hour to Kill, August 2022
https://halfhourtokill.com/home/approaching-night-by-louis-faber

September 2, 2022

THE FATES HAVE IT

It was a chance meeting they thought
although the Fates knew otherwise.
Theirs was a subtly planned world,
leave no fingerprints, always have
an alibi, better still never get caught.

It was a short meeting, a brief
conversation and an ill-meant
promise to stay in touch, numbers
exchanged and as soon forgotten.

He never imagined calling,
nor did she, but he did call
and they did meet again,
and the Fates smiled as
the couple celebrated
their golden anniversary,
both still certain it was all
a simple matter of chance.

May 8, 2022

YOU, REALLY

Would it surprise you to learn
that like most writers, I
have spent more than a little
guilty time trying to imagine
what you look like, what you know
you should be doing
while you are reading this poem.

And I do wish I couild see
your face as you read it, knowing
it is a conversation where
you want to speak, to tell me
that you like my work, that
reading me is a complete
and utter waste of time,
but you cannot, so I will
conclude that you do like
my work or else you would
not be reading this in the first place.

April 20, 2022

CHATTER

The cat tells me that
long after we have gone
to bed for the night she
hears the arguments
of the authors of the books
lining our living room shelves.

The poets, she says, quibble
over rhyme and meter, claim
this one is academic, that
one merely skilled in doggerel.

And don’t, she adds, get her
started on the Buddhist
authors, who argue endlessly
over their solution to this
koan or that one, each
certain of his own wisdom.

So do me a favor, the cat
concludes, and mix them up,
for they will quickly drive
each other to utter silence,
as the short story writers
dominate the conversation.

November 26, 2021

TECHNICAL SERVICE

At some point in each call
to a customer service representative,
or worse still technical assistance
which is a painful oxymoron
in and of itself, I pause and wonder
how the conversation might go
if I could reach through
the ether of the phone
and grab the script.
Would the voice on the other end
suddenly become attached
to a person, ripped
from its computer home?
Would that person engage
in pleasantries for a bit
before telling me that I should
go to the website where
I will inevitably learn that
there is nothing they can
or will do for me? And why
is a call to my local doctor
garbled, but my computer
voice in India is crisp, clear
if never fully intelligible?

October 29, 2021

CONVERSATION

Arising into night
the departing sun
tangoes away with its cloud,
memories soon forgotten.
Other dancers take the stage,
now a romance, now
a war dance, feathers raised
in prayer to unseen gods.
Night will soon bring
its curtain across this stage,
the avian cast’s final bows taken
the theatre will darken, awaiting
another performance,
a new script tomorrow,
but for this solitary moment
of frozen grace, it is we
who write the conversation,
our lines sung by actors who
know only nature’s
unrelenting song.

October 9, 2021

CONVERSATION

If you want a good conversation
birds should be your first choice,
wading birds at the top of the list,
although you still have to be quick
for if you meander they will lose interest.

Animals are to who you should turn
if you need advice on getting through
the omnipresent obstacles life raises
to impede your smooth passage through it,
but note cats tend to be pithy and easily bored.

Cows and horses in the fields
have almost infinite patience, and listen
when others would turn away, but note
that they are easily distracted so it is best
to keep a handful of hay at the ready always.

And, remember to bring your dictionaries
for birds and animals will speak to you
only in their own languages despite the fact
that they fully understand yours, but do not
deign or desire to be thought of as human.