an old writer and his words

  • CHOSEN WORDS

    There are times when I pause and wonder howthe words that are my stock in trade view me.Do I empower them, give them a meaningthat they would lack without my imposedcontext, or do I imprison them, locking themon a page or screen, forced into proximitywith others they never would have chosen.What would they say to…

    Lou Faber

  • QUANTUM

    The universe is bothenormously vastmeasurable only in metaphorand so infinitesimally small,an ideathat would fitin the cornerof a grain of sand.As you walk the beachgrasp universesbetween your toesand kick theminto the tideof the cosmos. First appeared in Litmora Literary Magazine, Issue 5 – Beyond the Cosmoshttps://www.litmoralitmag.com/faber-two-pieces

    Lou Faber

  • ON LEARNING PAINFULLY

    I cannot begin to tell youhow glad I am that I neverfollowed through on the ideaof flying to Lisbon and searchingfor you or some record of you.After all, she told the adoptionagency when she gave me upthat you were a Portuguese Jewshe met in Washington, D.C.so the odds were good you couldbe found in the…

    Lou Faber

  • FOLLOW THE TRAIL

    To say that I am a wanderer isto vastly overstate the reality.I have wandered quite a bitin my life, but that wanderingwas always predicated on happenstanceand a true wanderer, by definition,wanders with the intent of doing so.I was never looking for anythingmerely a sense of direction, an ideaof how I got to this point, whatforces…

    Lou Faber

  • MANY THINGS

    There are many thingsyou will never hear a poet say: I wanted to write a concrete poembut every time I floated the ideait immediately sank I love occasional poetrybut I never have foundthe occasion to write any It is no wonder so many poetsare starving because allthey write is free verse I thought of writingconfessional…

    Lou Faber

  • NEXT TIME

    He is certain that in his next life he does not want to be a dog. Having to go outside in all sorts of weather for basic bodily functions is not for him. And he has never been fond of leashe,s on either of their ends. He is not sure, given where the courts have…

    Lou Faber

  • AT PRESENT

    Somewhere in the worldat this very moment,something remarkableis being laid to ruin.It is our nature to tear downwhat we cannot understand,what we hold different,what does not comportwith our present viewof how things ought to be.Somewhere in the worldat this very momentsomething remarkableis being born,is being created,is arisingout of an idea,a thought, an emotion.We are allsomewhere…

    Lou Faber

  • HE WAS

    He was a writer. That is what he told people who asked what he did. Although he said it was what, no who he was. He said he wanted to be the sort of person that Stalin feared, a man of ideas, maybe someday, in an Alexieian world, charged with a crime of holding an…

    Lou Faber

  • GREAT DANGER

    There are those who saythat we are engagedin a culture war, and thatmay be an apt description,even as it misses its mark. It is hardly cultures thatare at war, but those whotake shelter under theirfalse mantle, armoredin labels, shielded by cliches. But the weapons of the warare quite real, knownfor ages, Stalin and Alexiecalling them…

    Lou Faber

  • WHERE? EXACTLY!

    In Yuma, Arizona today, I have no idea what might have happened. Once, without going to a library and rummaging through microfiche in the dust laden corner of the second basement, I would never be able to find out. And if I did, I would wonder why there was not some simpler way of finding…

    Lou Faber