I wonder if there are priests
sitting on beds drinking Diet Coke
and contemplating the meaning
of heaven, of sex,
of indigestion from a burger
and fries with onions
in a bar, the angels
covering their ears from the din
of four pool tables,
of slipping on the spilled Red Rock,
while outside the traffic thins
and the neon blinks
its message to the gods.
First appeared in Anthropocene, Issue 1, 2021
https://www.anthropocenepoetry.org/post/another-evening-spent-by-louis-faber
As a teenager, like so
many others of our narrow
minded, obsessed gender,
I imagined myself a great lothario,
girls on the edge of womanhood
lining up for my attention.
The absurdity of that dream
was lost on me and my peers,
testosterone drowning it in a sea
of hormones, and we were oblivious
to the real obstacle always
right in front of us, that we
imagined love and sex
in the first person only.
Now that youth and even
middle age are behind me
I still try to recall when I realized
that love requires the second person
singular, and my pleasure is
complete only when
my partner’s is as well.
You want to shout that they don’t make movies like they used to, romantic comedies without R ratings for gratuitous sex or language. We both know this is true, but the problem is not that they don’t make those movies, that is the symptom. The problem is that they don’t make audiences like they used to, ones that loved thoughtful romantic comedies, and filmmakers always stoop to the mass of audiences o matter how low they have to go, for that is where the money is.
I do some
of my best thinking
he whispered,
when I think
of nothing at all.
Did you know
that if not
for the Babylonians
entire worlds
would be cubes.
In fact they were
for centuries.
It’s like sex
he continued,
it’s best when
you are celibate.
But then again
Bally shoes
are no longer
hand sewn,
and taro is best
served
room temperature.
In the park
the ginkgoes, male
and female, separated
by the path, are putting
on their leaves.
Soon the squirrels,
eternal voyeurs,
will gather
on their branches
to watch them mating.
an old writer and his words 