an old writer and his words

  • SHARING

    It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, butyou probably wouldn’t have been all that upset.It was all about you, but not for you, thatcomes later, and we know you’ll be pleased.This one was for some of us who needed thisto be able to keep going, to keep from lookingonly back, into the darkness that is our…

    Lou Faber

  • ANYWHERE BUT

    I was twelve at the time, would havechosen to be anywhere but there.I hated visiting her at home, but thistook my disgust to a whole new level.We were never close, never would be,she so old, so old world, so unlikeanyone I had known, so like the womensitting outside the old hotels on South Beachwaiting for…

    Lou Faber

  • HAIL AND FAREWELL

    On very dreary daysI like to drive through the cemeterymeandering among the stonesuntil I find a freshly dug grave.I stop, under the vigilant eyeof the caretaker and carefully placea cassette of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dancesor Smetana’s Die Moldau into the player.As the melodies spill forthI hope they lift the spiritof the resting, bringing them a momentof…

    Lou Faber

  • RIDING THE WASTELAND

    We set out with bold ambition, egos saddled and reined across a landscape left barren by our leaders who saw only carefully stacked boards and beams awaiting the master carpenter, great floral sprays dotting the lobbies of glass and chrome edifices, created in their own images. We ride in search of the promised land, and…

    Lou Faber

  • THE RUNES

    Here, in these unmown fields where the morning mists gather once stood the ancient chieftain his clan assembled about him staring into the distant trees under the watchful eye of the gods. As the October winds blew down from the hills, they strode forward blades glinting in the midday sun ebbing and flowing until the…

    Lou Faber

  • DEMENTIA

    He can remember it as though it was just yesterday. Actually it was just yesterday, but for him that had little to do with memory. Bits of his childhood would come flooding back: the city, the cousins who took him in for the few dollars his mother could offer. But his grandsons are a vague…

    Lou Faber

  • SCRIVEN

    “You know,” she said with a smile, “that you are going straight to the infernal regions when this is over and done with, no doubt.” “I can’t imagine,” he replied, “that He who is all knowing and all powerful would ever let that happen to me.” “Be serious,” she added, “you know that the nether…

    Lou Faber

  • CALLER

    It’s Sunday, so I know, before long I will have the nagging thought that I should call my mother. I’ve had this thought for years, once acted upon it with regularity, listened patiently for her weekly list of things I needed to help her with, since I never visited to do the work with her…

    Lou Faber

  • ON MORTALITY

    Death was never something we considered, until that certain, ill-defined moment when our immortality suddenly disappeared, and in its place was a reality to be avoided. Even once death became a shadow, always lurking around us, we kept our face toward the sun, so that death might not be seen in the bright light of…

    Lou Faber

  • A SUDDEN DEPARTURE

    You sneaked away one night. You were there, but while sleep claimed me, you were gone without notice or warning. Where should I look for you? In these barren hills where the spirits of the first nations roam, looking for their ancestral land? Where should I look for you? Wandering these verdant fields where a…

    Lou Faber