an old writer and his words

  • RAZAN’S ARISING AND VANISHING

    Thoughts comeand thoughts go.You know this, just asyou come and you go.But where do you go,where do thoughts goor were they never real.And if they were not realare you real, orare you a thought? A reflection on case 43 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • SERIOUSLY AMAZON?

    I am struggling to understandjust who is the target marketwith a thirty piece atof rubber ducks for the baththat Amazon wants to sell me.I did have a rubber duckyfor the bath when I was a childbut he was singular, and whenhe partially cracked and drownedI buried him in the backyardand vowed never to ownwaterfowl again,…

    Lou Faber

  • UNDER THE BED

    There was a ghostor two for a short while,that lived under my bedwhen I was three or four. My mother said theywere not real, she couldn’tsee them when she looked,so they were all in my mind. I had to tell her that youdon’t ever actually see ghosts,you just know they are therebecause you sense their…

    Lou Faber

  • NO BOIL

    Not so much watchedas casually gazed at, andnot a pot but a smartphone,which had best not boil. No ring, not this daylost in what, an absentmind, thoughts of self,not unexpected but wanted. Distance real becomesdistance virtual, emptylater explained, wordsof apology, forgiveness but a lingering scar thatwill recede, reappearthat laughter may coverbut never fully erase.

    Lou Faber

  • REALITY, OF A SORT

    The single greatest problemwith dreams is that theyare utterly real when youare dreaming, the absurdis not only permittedbut expected, and in thatmoment it is hardly absurd. The dead and living comeand go with impunity,and you welcome themas real people becausefor that period of timethey are as real as you are. But awakening, you realizeit was…

    Lou Faber

  • IMAGINE THAT

    You said you can only acceptwhat is real and tangible,everything elseis a delusion or figment. I cannot accept your premiseas a generalization, it eliminatesso much, for what you call realmay be otherwise to me. And given that you are notalways present, perhapswhen you are not, when youare not actually tangibleyou are a delusion, and thatis…

    Lou Faber

  • REAL TIME

    He can spend hours on the wooden bench in the small square in the center of the village. There he is but a statue, staring up at the giant clock face that looms over the square from the turret of the Village Hall. He likes to watch the long hand, arrowlike, make its slow, but…

    Lou Faber

  • PARTY

    In my dreams I am invitedto an almost endless cycleof parties where I always fit inand share attention as I give it. It’s different in my day life, whereI draw only the occasional invitation,and then usually as the plus one,and I am expert at finding corners, where I can be observer, notobserved, and need not…

    Lou Faber