an old writer and his words

  • THE WALL

    The wall is black granite, highly polished be an unseen hand and the fingers of countless thousands present but each unseen by the others. At first glance you want to count the names, but you lack fingers enough for the task and others are quickly withdrawn as are their eyes. You know where the names…

    Lou Faber

  • RECITAL

    The keys didn’t frighten me. 88 of them, but I’d never use the majority, probably. And the ones I knew were generally well behaved, although they did defy me from time to time, and then said it was my fault, they didn’t respond to wishes, just fingers, And even the audience didn’t bother me, not…

    Lou Faber

  • FEEDER

    The seed specklesthe snow like buckshotpiled neatly under the branchwhere we, fingers numbed,tied the little chaletto the lowest limbof the ancient maple.The birds stand staringas the squirrel swingsslowly in the breeze. First Appeared in Echoes, March – April 1996.

    Lou Faber

  • TAILORING

    My adoptivegrandfather could take bitsof cloth, a needle, threadand with magiclygnarled fingerscreate a garmentfit for royalty, to be wornby the old womanliving in the walkup down the street. I take wordsbits of ideasand hope,and with manicured fingerscreate whatI can only hopepasses for poetryto be ignoredby thoseliving nearbyin my suburb.

    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 volumes.The only thing you cannot takeis my words,…

    Lou Faber

  • THE CLUB

    It’s jazz, it’s a club,but there what once wasis no more, there areno ashtrays on the table,overflowing early intothe second set, no cloudof cigarette smoke descendingfrom the too dark ceiling.There is no recognizable odorof a freshly lit Gaulloise,in the trembling fingers ofa young man trying to look cool,trying not to cough on eachinhalation, in the…

    Lou Faber

  • ANTWERP

    It is seven in the morning Antwerp arises slowing in winter the small bar along seldom used quays of Schelde is almost empty, one old man tottering on his stool swaying to breath head pressed on the counter. Young couple, she brown haired pale white skin against white sweater, he long blond woven into a…

    Lou Faber

  • LUDWIG

    When I was twelve, I think, maybe in the last days of eleven, and in my third year of piano lessons my teacher, Mrs. Schwarting, she of no first name, and a steady hand that could squeeze the muscle of my shoulder, a taloned metronome, gave me a small plastic bust of Beethoven, told me…

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING

    one thousand fingers gently fold one thousand cranes our tears are countless. red sandstone plateaus coyote stalks through scrub pine chindi howl assent in the Norway Spruce pine cones threaten to descend. Squirrels sit waiting.

    Lou Faber

  • WORLD HONORED ONE ASCENDS THE SEAT

    If you sit patiently enough, and sit long enough, just perhaps the teacher will acknowledge you. If he holds out his arms and offers you the heart of the Dharma, will you grasp it and hold it closely? If you try and grasp it it will slip through your fingers, disappear from sight, lost forever.…

    Lou Faber