In crossing the event horizon
dualities collapse and crumble.
God and Satan are again merged
into a unity, pressed into diamond
its glint that of a thousand suns.
We follow as we must, for now
there is neither good nor evil,
there merely is, and we have found
the path we have been seeking
on the road to our sigularity.
So, if I have it right, God
managed to come up with ten
plagues for Moses to visit
on Pharaoh, although at the time
Moses probably could not
understand why it was ten,
since God was boundlessly
creative, or so He told Moses.
Maybe it dawned on Moses
when wandering in the desert
that ten was a convenient number,
after all, he only gave Moses
ten commandments, but I doubt
he told Moses they were
a starter set and the other
603 would come along
in due course, but Moses
wouldn’t take the blame
for them, he’d be written
out of the story in Book Two.
First Published in Half Hour to Kill, August, 2022
https://halfhourtokill.com/home/a-decimal-system-by-louis-faber
Last night, as I sat poised
on the edge of sleep, I asked
God for continued blessings,
for I have been blessed more
than I likely deserve.
I heard Her reply that I
would always have Her love,
on earth and heaven, and I
knew my request, selfish
for certain, had been answered.
But now I wonder if it was
truly She or your voice I heard
in that moment, but I know
which voice would not matter
for you are the blessing I sought.
If you truly believe that God created
every creature individually, it is all
His intelligent design, then why the apple
in the Garden, and why both crocs
and alligators, wouldn’t one have
been sufficient, and why, just why
have mosquitoes at all, ever?
I won’t bother asking why God gave
us free will, since you say He will
punish us if we use it other than
as He directed, and you know the
directons better than anyone.
For that matter, why termites
and fire ants, alternative purposes
seem wholly lacking, and above all,
and beyond all logic and even
beyond omniscience, what in the name
of God was He thinking when
He created the politician?
We are, after all, merely human
so we are fraught with questions
and lacking answers, willing
to take things on faith on occasion.
Take God, for example, although
some say He is uniquely exemplary,
we want to know if God is a he,
a she, or to cover all our bases, a they.
And when we ask for a sign we
often look to the heavens as if
God only operate locally, even
Moses knew a bush would suffice.
Actually we hunger for signs now,
in a world gone mad, cursing free
will, wanting proof, when all we
need do is marvel at nature around us.
It was a certain rhythm that he loved,
one he felt it in total silence, yet it faded
in the presence of sound, a doumbek
of the soul he would describe it.
He remembered how it was before
their one god rendered him and his kind
mere mythological creatures fit only
for poetry and dusty library shelves.
He would have his revenge some day,
would condemn their God to a corner
of the heavens, an eternity to reconsider
the rashness of his narcissism, but
in the meanwhile he would continue
to rest in the heart of this constellation
hoping to go unnoticed, happy just
to listen to the rhythm of the universe.
On the subway there was a placard
telling me and all of the other riders
where we could find God, promising
salvation if we made the search.
Someone had scrawled beneath it
“God is ded.” I was left to wonder
if the writer also thought that God
was now somehow deceased,
and how you would know
if that were really the case, since
you’d be struck deaf, dumb
and blind if you were in His presence,
unless, of course, you were
an evangelical preacher, in which
case you talked to the man upstairs
with great regularity, making
certain you never, ever disclosed
how much you were taking in
in collections each Sunday, lest
God claim his portion of the take.
His extended wings
momentarily block the sun
setting his feather tips ablaze.
His vermillion talons grasp
the waiting branch threatening
to break it from the tree
unless is bends to his will.
His curved beak arches
against an orange sky
holding tightly to
the retreating sun.
I can only watch
a majestic moment
and believe that somewhere
the must be a God
for nature alone could not
conceive of a creature
of such beauty, such passion.
Even long after he had left
his childhood behind, or such
of it as he had actually had,
he could still stare up into
the night sky, at ceiling of stars
with more than a little awe.
And even though he had left
childhood behind, no one
had yet answered the one
question his parents ducked
time and time again, one
so simple a child knew
its answer, but asked anyway,
for validation or irritation.
If God created the heavens
why did He or She arrange
the stars so that people
could see in their order
other people, lesser gods
and all manner of animals?
God sits at his easel, brush in hand
and thinks about the butterfly
alighting on the oak.
This man would rather paint
the nightmare of hell, but
he has been cast out and
his memory has grown dim.
He remembers being a small child
amused by the worm peering
from soil in a fresh rain and how
when he split it, both halves
would slither away
in opposite directions.
Now he rocks in the chair
and watches night fall
and shatter on the winter ground.
First Appeared in Medicinal Purposes: A Literary Review, Vol. 1, No. 6,
Spring 1997.
an old writer and his words 