an old writer and his words

  • A VISIT

    I used to say that my birth parents,both dead before I could give them names,her youthful face from yearbooks,come to me now in my dreams.Of course that isn’t true, theydid not come to me in my dreamsdespite my hollow invitationsso I went to them, for they no longertravel very much, preferring to stayin their well-maintained…

    Lou Faber

  • ONCE A HOME

    They arrived again as the sunprepared for impending departure.The wetland is verdant and smallan area the developer reluctantlyset aside for nature, not knowingor caring that the birds who oncecalled this whole area home,a thousand and more each eveningare now crowded into this aviantenement, gone are their spacious homesgiven over to ours, but the birds knowwhen…

    Lou Faber

  • THINGS I SHOULD HAVE TOLD MY SONS

    1.You can lead a horse to waterbut if he is agoraphobicyou will be walking home 2.You can runbut doing so on icewill lead to useless bruisingand broken bones 3.a bird in the handwill not be terribly happyand could shitall over your new shoes 4.All good things comeand most go,but bad things lingerif you allow it…

    Lou Faber

  • THRIFT STORE

    It was small and a bit cramped,down thankfully solid stairsin the basement of the church.Thrift stores, charitable ones,tend to inhabit basements as ifthe red dress, clearly worn butwith tangoes left in herwasn’t ready for the light of day.And on a nearby rack isthe Army jacket, still neatly pressedit’s buttons shiny saying Inever saw battle, the…

    Lou Faber

  • SAVANNAH DREAMS

    Slide between the sheetsexhausted after a day of walkingthe streets of this old city.This is a city of squares, statuestoo many to fully recall, eachone’s history unknown to most,and with the slowly falling rainto remain unknown to us.Despite its age and great beautythis is a tourist city, one whererestaurants don’t take reservationsknowing their tables will…

    Lou Faber

  • TO A FATHER, NEVER KNOWN

    You were to be my prophetand you played Jonah one morningby clutching your chest at the sinkand dropping to the floor, dead.You left me to wanderthrough Ninevah, a beggartwice robbed of originground pulled from beneath my feet.Why did you flee your taskthe one for which you were anointed.Couldn’t you see our home laid ruinconsumed by…

    Lou Faber

  • SAVANNAH

    The morning clings to youlike a damp sheet, the foglifting slowly, a magnifierpulled away from the square,the live oaks edging into focus. You sit at the table, wipingthe crumbs from you reallydon’t want to know when,a steaming cortado waitingpatiently for the first bitesof the large scones onthe mismatched plates. In the background a cry,“vanilla soy…

    Lou Faber

  • HORSING AROUND

    At some point in time I imaginemy mother’s family must’ve hadhorses, or perhaps the ones they sawwere the horses of the locals,an aide when you are conductinga pogram, chasing familiesfrom their homes, into a flight to freedom.Perhaps my family were farmersor merchants in Lithuania, thoughprobably not owning a drugstoreas their children did in CharlstonWest Virginia,…

    Lou Faber

  • VICARIOUSLY

    I wonder how my life would bedifferent if just once duringmy childhood I had imaginedthere was a ghost under my bedor a skeleton buried in the garden.I read books with thosescenes and I felt deprived.My friends said that I lackedimagination, and I was ableto imagine them fallingvictim to ghosts that inhabitedtheir homes, were carried offby…

    Lou Faber

  • FELIS CATUS

    When you live with the cat,which is to say when a catallows you to live in her home,you quickly learn a wholenew language, a few words hers,mono- or bisyllabic, words for yes,food, brush, clean up my litter,and in our case even thank you, rarely used.And you expand your own vocabularyas well, for English is often…

    Lou Faber