an old writer and his words

  • ALIVE IN THE NIGHT

    I walked the cityin the heart of the night,street lights casting the shadowsof ghosts of those long goneto bed, unknowingthat the city has beengiven over to ravening windsthat find no shelter. I step into an alcoveand the fading lightof the flickering bulb overheadurges me to move onlest she bury mein the darkness of her grave.…

    Lou Faber

  • A PERFECT STILLNESS

    You lie there, perfectly still,the morning breeze slides awayleaving the sun to stare down,and the birds fall into silence.  I gently touch the stone, feelyour cheek beneath my finger,see your face, the college yearbookphoto all that I have of you.  I speak silently to you, tellingof my sixty-seven years, of yourgrandsons and great grandchildrenand I…

    Lou Faber

  • NEVER, STILL

    I know what you did not tell them,that much I could learn for myself,but what did you tell them? I knowyou were full figured, I think thatis the acceptable term, once it wasReubenesque, but someonemust have noticed something. Maybe those at work, sitting at theirterminals didn’t notice, you cameand went, few friendships perhaps,but you were…

    Lou Faber

  • WE ARE IN KANSAS, TOTO

    In my dream, the worldwas at peace, and I was ridingacross Kansas on a unicycle, towingmy car, packed to the windows,my dog walking alongside urgingme to speed up because shewanted to visit South Dakota.I am due for a tricycle, Iremind the dog, “the gravemore likely,” she respondswith a sneer that teeters betweenlove and spite, always…

    Lou Faber

  • HOLY ARMY

    1. A millennium agothe army of the lorddressed in mail and rodeproud steeds acrossbarren lands, swordsflashing in a red roasting sunwashed in the bloodof the infidels.They stopped for prayerblessing the bodiesleft along the dirt trackleft by their hooves,a common gravefor common facesdiffering only in the colorof skin and hair. 2. In this millenniumthe army of…

    Lou Faber

  • LIGHTS

    For eight days each Decemberthey call out to me as the flameof the candles flickers out,“Remember me” they say in unison,“remember me”, in the voice of the child,an old woman, in Yiddish,in Polish, German, Czech, Latt.I want to remember but I cannot seea face reduced to ash, blendedinto the earth of a farm field outside…

    Lou Faber

  • ON LOSSES

    By the way, the headstone is lovely,designed by your niece, it pays tributeto you as aunt, as sister, as friend. I do wish it had said mother as wellbut I know I’m the one secret you thoughtwould fit into a corner of the pine box,buried with you, to be, like you, reclaimedby the rocky soil…

    Lou Faber

  • UNANSWERED

    As strange as it seems, I canspend hours in a used bookstorelost in the marginalia, and textbooks, particularly those in psych and sociologyare generally the most fertile,for those students, though they would never admit it, pursued those fieldshoping to find answers to their ownproblems without having to ask. Yesterday’s visit was particularly fertile,but it was…

    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

  • REMEMBERING ANOTHER FATHER

    It was scrawled on the back of a grocery receipt, barely legible. Charles H. Boustead Tunnel, fryingpan river. The river is lower case, its capitals dangling by serifs in one of the tunnel grates that constricts the water’s flow. Outside the full moon is ensnared in the gnarled, barren branches of the white birch. She…

    Lou Faber