an old writer and his words

  • IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE

    In my mother’s housethe refrigerator was dottedby little plastic fruitand the phone numberof a plumber we had once used,my sisters latest drawingpresaging a careerin health service managementa shopping listand my brother’s report cardshowing exemplary effortbut a weakness in spellingand my upcoming appointmentat the orthodontist. In my housethe refrigerator is dottedwith little wordsfrom Shakespeareand Chaucerand those…

    Lou Faber

  • THEN, NOW

    It was easier then, so let’sgo there, the spring of 1970,the location is less important,so long as it’s a coffee housewhere those barely old enoughto drink, or barely short of thatage congregate, waiting forsomething to happen or, Iseriously hoped, someone,someone with little hair, butwho carried James Joyce inhis jeans pocket, Portrait ofthe Artist the only…

    Lou Faber

  • POETS GATHER

    One deep and abiding beauty of dreamsis that it is entirely logical forMarina Tsvetaeva to be engagedIn an animated discussion withCorso and Ginsberg where none willacknowledge that the world theywrote and imagined is a total mess. Over in the corner, Mandelstam andReznikoff have agreed that for eternityevery game of chess they play willresult in a…

    Lou Faber

  • ELEGY FOR A POET

    (for Allen Ginsburg) You died quietly in your bed friends gathered around the cars and buses of the city clattering out a Kaddish to a God you had long ago dismissed as irrelevant. We would have expected your to howl, to decry the unfairness of it all, but you merely said it is time, and…

    Lou Faber

  • ANOTHER BAR, THIS ONE TOKYO

    This poem was recently (February 5, 2019) published in the Beatnik Cowboy.  Check them out at: https://beatnikcowboy.com/   “Another,” he said, his knees pressing against the mahogany panels of the old bar, “and keep them coming until I can take no more. There won’t be a last call tonight.” The clatter of caroming billiard balls…

    Lou Faber

  • TO ALLEN

    Tell me more about death, I said put it into words, that’s your specialty so open your mouth from amid your black jungle of a beard now white, I want a noise, a howl. Why the hell do I hear only silence, I know it’s the sound of one hand clapping, but I demand more…

    Lou Faber