an old writer and his words

  • NIGHT AGAIN

    It is well past midnight and outsidethe birds and frogs in the wetlandannounce the rain, unnecessary really,as it beats a steady rhythm on the roofand windows, pierced onlyby claps of thunder and the lightningwhich gives them short announcement.The light dances through the closedwindow blinds on what ought to bean ink black night, and I knowthe…

    Lou Faber

  • A FOOL’S BUSINESS

    At the end of a long day spenton the business end of poetry, andyes there is a business end but do notconfuse that with money for thathas nothing at all to do with poetry,I stare at the page knowing the wordsare going to be stubborn this day,will refuse to exit the pen, hidingin the darkness…

    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

  • THE POET?

    He stood in front of the classin a more than half empty lecture halland leaned into the podium, almost smiling. He was here, a real poet, half famousby his own reckoning, totally so by ourssince he was rumpled, as a poet ought,his sport coat tweedy and ill fitting. Still we harbored some doubts,for there was…

    Lou Faber

  • ENSO WHAT

    Today I again took up the brush,carefully mixed the sumi-e inkand with hand poised over a sheetof anticipating rice paper waited, knowing that the moment for a strokewas imminent but not yet at hand,and I dare not force it for brushpainting is a practice that cannot be compelled, a gentle mergerof idea, brush, ink and…

    Lou Faber

  • FUTURE HISTORY

    The history of modern literature, at least to those who purport to create it, is inextricably tied up with technology. The quill and inkwell ceded only reluctantly to the fountain pen and ballpoint. Foolscap was affixed to corkboard by countless pushpins, but one wasn’t a teal writer until one stuck in the sole of your…

    Lou Faber

  • TIPPING THE WATER BOTTLE 無門關 四十

    These few words gathered neatly on a scrap of simple paper, what do you call it? Answer carefully for you response may carry the keys to the doors of Mount Tai-i. Better still, upend the water bottle, watch the ink and water form a gentle pool into which no pebble drops. A reflelction on case…

    Lou Faber

  • ENFOLDING

    As a child I was quite adept folding sheets of newspaper into paper hats and paper boats. The boats immediately took on water, and sank like the sodden masses I made them to be, but I could wear the hats for hours, until my mother had to scrub my forehead to get off the printer’s…

    Lou Faber

  • CACOPHONY OF SILENCE

    There is one thing a poet hates more than a page that refuses to be filled – it is coming across words that profess or are sworn to silence. I had a pen I truly loved until it announced early one morning it was taking a vow of iambic celibacy. Poems once pregnant with possibility…

    Lou Faber

  • AROUND IT

    It is remarkably simple, really, a single circular brush stroke in a monochrome black on rice paper, always nearly perfectly round, never is the circle complete, always some small thing left wanting. You stare at it, more at the small gap, imagining it filled, hoping it cannot be for it holds out the promise that…

    Lou Faber