an old writer and his words

  • STILL MOURNING

    I think about you often, lying besidemy grandparents on the hillsideoverlooking the Kanawha River,bathed in the utter silencethat only the dead can clearly hear.I think of you more often than shewho replaced you, she who laterreplaced me with her own, Ian adjacency, still useful butno longer fully or truly valued.I think of you lovingly, knowingfor…

    Lou Faber

  • TEMPUS, MEH

    As kids we knew that timewasn’t all that important,it was a concept of little meaningexcept that with which we imbued itand all of our senses coulddo things we never imagine.But now, at my age, timehas taken on new meaningas it compresses, andseasons are marked bybarely perceptible changesin temperature and humidity.The factories along the riverare mostly…

    Lou Faber

  • CLOCKWORK

    Deep within the cosmic corethe celestial horologist tinkers,bending time into wormholesas the stars stare, muted.We are oblivious, strain to seeour place amid endless expansion.We accelerate blindly, unknown,unknowing where we are,where is could be at thismoment, at any moment,caught up in the temporal tide,a never yielding riverin which we inevitably drown.We swim against time’s tide,a futile…

    Lou Faber

  • COLOURS

    We hunted him as a stagacross his fields, trophywe called him red man,color of Ares, godssacrificed on our altar,his rivers run with his spirit.I am whitebereft of color,barren, a glarea desert stripped of life.It is I who wearCain’s mark, pluckedfrom the gardenthe sweet taste fadesmy lips are dry.You are blackan amalgam, greenof the grasses in…

    Lou Faber

  • PAUSING

    As the rivers dry upand lakes become pondswe are finding things wenever thought we would see.An old warship in Europe,dinosaur footprints, carsand, sadly, the bones of some.We stop momentarily to marvelat these discoveries, thenwithdraw to our homes where wehope we can escape the heat,our air conditioners working overtime,the power plants strained.Yet we never stop to…

    Lou Faber

  • POSER

    For unknown reasons Iwas told I was going tosit for a portrait by a wellknown local artist. It was a gift, so I hadlittle choice but to accept,and so I sat on a chairfrozen in place. I asked how long itwould take and he replied“Not more than four sittingsand then I can go to work.”…

    Lou Faber

  • SMALL REFLECTION

    It is that moment when the moonis a glaring crescent,slowly engulfed bythe impending night—when the few clouds give outtheir fading glowin the jaundiced lightof the sodium arc street lamp.It nestles the curb—at first a small bird—when touched, a twisted piece of root. I want to walk into the weed-strewnaging cemetery, stand in the shadowof the…

    Lou Faber

  • AFLOAT

    I have taken tofolding my poemsinto little paper boatsand dropping gentlyinto the riverwhere they saildownstream. Many may drownbut some mayreach the lakeor be plucked outand reador discarded. The river is,in the end,my harshestcritic.

    Lou Faber

  • WASHING OUT

    I wrote down the biggestmistakes I made in lifeon the backs of newly fallenmaple leaves, and carried them,a fair number, to the river. I cast them onto the water,some quickly swept up,a few lingering on a fallentree partially dammingthe flow, waiting for this. Most disappeared asthe water approachedthe falls, cascaded overon its way to the…

    Lou Faber

  • RENTAL

    The mountain reachesup grasping clouds.The river no longer runsred down its flanksnow traversedby a black ribbontwisting upward.The Hertz rentalhas a warningtaped on the glove boxdriving above 5,000 feetis prohibited, andat the driver’s risk.The Minolta sitsin the trunkas I denythe siren’s call. FirstAppeared in Raconteur, Issue 3, January 1996.

    Lou Faber