an old writer and his words

  • SADNESS

    He never stopped to take noticethat his anger had given wayto a deep sadness, onehe felt had him trapped, searchingthrough the pain for an exitfrom a place he never imaginedhe would leave willingly.He had promised her a lifetime,a statement he took as a truthnot considering that her promise,whatever it had been, had becomeviolable, the pain…

    Lou Faber

  • INCARNATION

    I had been sitting for an hourin the coffee shop areaof the now gone Borders bookstoretrying to piece together the shardsof a life shattered by the impendingend of a long marriage that wasgoing to last for a lifetime.And I was hoping, perhaps,to meet someone, ready or not,to try and fill the smallest cornerof what was…

    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

  • FLATTERY

    I have never bought into the conceptthat imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.That said, I have spent far too long scouringthe small shops of Crete, Santorini, Lesbos,the back alleys of towns on Rhodes, Corfu,Naxos, Lemnos, Chios, driven throughThessaloniki, Patras Piraeus, Heraklion.Throughout, I’ve carefully marshaledwords and phrases, outlined forms,honed allusions, alliteration, the odd chiasmusI’ve even…

    Lou Faber

  • UNUSUAL

    I recall it wasn’t as cold as usualthat early November evening, Iwas standing nervously on the small deckin front of the Indian restaurant.This was going to be my fourthfirst date of my lifetime, notsurprising in the abstract, unlessyou realize that put me on an averageof one every twelve years.Fast forward almost three yearsand I am…

    Lou Faber

  • STORY

    You are still there. You have a patience that I will not know in this lifetime. I know I can always find you, even though you never reach out to me except in my dreams. There I tell you my life story and you listen intently. You have no need to ask questions, knowing I…

    Lou Faber

  • ONE DAY

    We stood trapped betweenslack-jawed and reverentlooking at the woman sittingcross-legged outside the doorwaylovingly fashioning a pot,her gnarled fingers gentleon the yielding clay. Others this day fashionedrings and pendantssimple tools on silverand one of a kind treasuresthey would lay outon blankets hoping wewould want morethan just a photograph. Our day on the Taos Puebloended too early,…

    Lou Faber

  • FINDING PEACE

    It wasn’t lost on me, mother, that this yearon the anniversary of death, you had been goneeighteen years, Chai in your beloved Hebrew,a lifetime for me, having never met yousave in the half of my genes you implantedin me when I was implanted in you. As you aged, alone, did you wonder whatbecame of the…

    Lou Faber

  • ERSE WHILE

    Growing up, I never imaginedthat I was Lithuanian, I mean Imight have as easily been from Mars. And it was only in my dreamsthat Gaelic was an ancestral tongue,not one my ancestors spoke,at least those who hadn’t yetmade the unthinkable moveto Norfolk and the frigid sea. Now I am all of those, and I knowthat…

    Lou Faber