an old writer and his words

  • NOT THOSE AGAIN

    Mother always bought Hydrox cookiesand I thought nothing of it, althoughI did wonder why my friends said thatkind of cookie was best dipped in milk.I dipped our Hydrox in milk and theyfell apart, a soggy mess and not quitea chocolate milk that anyone would drink.It was years later I learned thatthere was another brand which…

    Lou Faber

  • EASTER

    Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and Iam certain that neither of my mothers,one who had me, one who adopted me,will rise from their respective graves,with Jesus, all three Jewish.But resurrection is not a taskgiven over to women, the Bible says,with its always careful division of labor.And I will stop and think of the Judasin my life,…

    Lou Faber

  • HER REALM

    The child carefully packsthe sand into the red bucketand dreams of the castle sheis building, the one in whichshe can be the princess.Her parents know the tidewill soon carry her castle awayand with it her dream, but theydo not stop and wonder whylittle girls always dream of beingprincesses and never queens,for mothers of little girlsare…

    Lou Faber

  • AFTER THE UNVEILING

    I threw the first shovelof dirt on your wooden coffin. I expected you to protestthe sullying of the polished wood, or to call out for your mother,or introduce us to your long dead husband,but all we heard was the thunk and chunkof the clayey earth dancing off the cover,while you maintained silence. First published in…

    Lou Faber

  • BENEDICTION

    This is the benedictionI was never given the opportunityto offer, the blessing of a childfor his parents, those who are woveninto his genes, those that cannotbe denied, those without whomthere could be no thought of benediction.I bless the mother who carried meand handed me to the adoption agencyfearing she could not offer methe life she…

    Lou Faber

  • A TROIS

    Each night I crawl under the sheetscurled against the woman I loveand beside me slips your ghost.For sixty years you were no morethan a fleeting dream faceless, nameless,an infrequent visitor to my galleryof hopes, desires, and wishes.You never had a face, did Ihave one you could remember beforeI was plucked from you too soon, youlurking…

    Lou Faber

  • IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE

    In my mother’s housethe refrigerator was dottedby little plastic fruitand the phone numberof a plumber we had once used,my sisters latest drawingpresaging a careerin health service managementa shopping listand my brother’s report cardshowing exemplary effortbut a weakness in spellingand my upcoming appointmentat the orthodontist. In my housethe refrigerator is dottedwith little wordsfrom Shakespeareand Chaucerand those…

    Lou Faber

  • NO FAREWELLS

    You’ve been gone something liketwenty-two years now, althoughit doesn’t seem all that long to me.It is like I saw you five years agoand even that seems longer than real.They tell me I was fifty whenyou departed but I can’t clearly recallwhat it was like to be fifty.I know I never said goodbye to youand I…

    Lou Faber

  • HOME

    I don’t know what I expected to findstanding on the corner of a residential streetin Charleston, West Virginia, the domeof the capitol peering up in the distance.That is not surprising, the orange brick homewas much larger than I had assumed, but youlived there only a few years before leavingQuarrier Street to start a life of…

    Lou Faber

  • WORDS, ONLY WORDS

    How many wordshave I writtenyou will never readcould not hearstill we speakto each otherin a languageknown onlyto the deadand the mourningto a motherand a forgottenchild now grown. First appeared in Homer’s Odyssey Magazine, June 26, 2024https://homersodysseymag.com/blog/f/missing-my-judas-dream-on-and-words-only-words-by-louis-faber?blogcategory=Poetry

    Lou Faber