There are mornings
when I wish
I could be the cat,
sit in the corner,
close my eyes and
watch the world
suddenly disappear.
The cat breaks
my reverie, purring
there is room for one
and this role
is all mine.
First appeared in The Flying Dodo, Issue 4, January 2023
https://fantasyfantasywave.wixsite.com/my-site/louis-faber-certain-mornings
You were a young beauty
to my middle aged eyes
that knew, despite the mirror’s
lies, that I too retained
some large measure of youth.
Even that is now behind us,
and I can no longer deny
the mirror’s sad truth,
my face unable to belie what
I knew time had wrought.
And yet your beauty has
not diminished, rather grown
as does a fine wine richer
for time’s passage, and I
swim ever deeper in love’s sea.
The truck, a white Ford F-150
with oversized tires was parked
on the lawn next to the small
parking lot, filling quickly as people
arrived for the community market.
There was a giant flag fixed
to the bed of the truck, unavoidable
flapping in the breeze,
“Let’s Go Brandon,” and everyone
knew the message all too well.
Some averted their eyes, a few
smiled, and as many gave
the well known one finger salute,
aware that they ought not hate
the hater, but unable not do do so.
Colors, blue, red, purple cease
to matter in the face of such a blatant,
almost rabid effort that can only
widen the rift that is slowly tearing
our civilized society apart.
She appeared without notice,
not there, then there, she
half angel, half siren, half mad.
She appeared like Casseopaiea’s
faint shadow taking form,
stepping out of the sudden fog.
She was nymphlike, sylphan,
demanding attention, craving
the eyes of all who passed.
No one spoke to her, whether
out of fear or disinterest and she
grew angry, larger still, until
the full moon was clouded over,
Casseopeia returned to her throne,
and the ethereal one was gone.
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.
You feel like a voyeur, staring
as the red-shouldered hawks
mate in a tree mere yards
from where you are standing.
Still, you cannot take your eyes
away from them, your camera
tightly focussed, an avian
pornographer perhaps, or maybe
just a lucky soul given the chance
to witness a ritual denied to most,
and you know with luck their offspring
will repeat the show for you next year.
It is a sign of advancing age
or increasing love and passion
that I no longer imagine
chucking it all and wandering
off of some unplanned journey.
Next flight out please, I
don’t care where it is going,
so long as I have money left
for food and some basic lodging,
no baggage besides my carry on.
Of course today that would
land me in the interrogation
room or whatever TSA
calls it these days, for I must
be a terrorist or crazy person.
So I’ll stay here, visit friends
between visits to doctors,
salve my arthritis, degenerating
spine, failing eyes, and imagine
the places I might have gone.
When you are asked
to climb to the top
of the mountain and look
in all directions
and report who you see,
if you see no one, how
will you respond?
Close your eyes
and tell me,
am I still here?
A reflection on case 49 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
Describe this moment
without use of word or sound –
see where you are
with eyes pressed tightly closed,
hear a song with utter silence,
taste the pure mountain air
reach out and touch
that which has no shape
or form, no essence
and you sit
in the middle
of reality.
A reflection on case 45 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
She sits demurely on the step
staring off at something.
You want to know what but
her face isn’t saying, her eyes
soft, revealing nothing, her smile
enticing, teasing, and out of grasp.
You want to sit with her, see
what she looks at, what has captured
her thoughts, and there is room
on the step for you to join her,
but you have never met, you
cannot sit next to her, she
there half a century ago, and
you know she will only be
the stuff of dreams one night.
an old writer and his words 