• DOWN UNDER

    Whenever I heard Rolf Harris sing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport,” I had to wonder just what the kangaroo would make of that request. They aren’t the most patient of mammals and I knew few people who could hope to outrun one if it were intent on making a getaway. And I have never known…


  • MORNING SONG (Awdl Gywydd)

    The sun creeps down city streetsdew retreats from the grassesand fills the air, with sweet scentuntil spent, the bus passes. The robin sits in the treeas worms flee into the lawn.The morning foretells the rainthat will slowly drain the dawn. The city quietly wakesand stretching, shakes off the sleepit slowly comes back to life,the sun…


  • UPREACH

    The reeds reach upwarddreaming they are green rice shootsslowly turning goldin the sight of the sun lit smilecast by old Fujiyama First published in 31 Gōrutendā, February 2024https://31gorutenda.blogspot.com/2024/02/upreach-louis-faber.html?m=1


  • SUZY

    What do you sayon the loss of a child?We sat in the loungedrinking a vile potionfrom a hollowed pineapple,giggling insanelyfor no reason.We wandered the tunnelsfaces painted,clowns in bedlam.We lay togetheron a mattresson the floor and listenedto Aqualungmy arms around youboth, but sleepcame slowly and we talkeduntil night ran fromthe encroaching sun. I can feel her…


  • A DEPARTURE

    The sun is departing, sayingfarewell to a day wecan no longer reclaim, lostto history, to our inaction, inattention.We will try and remember it,cling to moments from it,but we know they are illusionsbest left in a past already departed.The stars will peer throughthe flowing clouds, winkingas if we are to guess their secrets,and soon the moon…


  • SPINNERS

    They were hoveringlike so many demented helicopterson the verge of the pondthis morning, as if fightingthe humidity that hangslike a velvet curtainover summer mornings.They look littlelike the dragonfliesof my childhood imaginationnor of the great beastswho should oncehave roamed here.We are nowtheir predatorsbut the morning sunno longer danceson the wingswe have given up.


  • BEING A PART

    He wanted, most of all, to bea part of something, butsomething that had never existed,a dissonance in an orderly universethat was slowly devolving into chaos.He was a shadow, seen only by dayand often ignored, not invisible, but nearly so.He would soon emerge from the darkness,welcome the day, the sun’s too briefappearance, his footsteps would echoa…


  • MORNING

    The clocks have begrudginglyshifted again, the earlymorning lost in darknessbarely illuminated by a waning moon.The fronds of the Royal Palm’swhisper “we are here, waitfor us.” But they are mere shadowsbegging for dawn’s arrival.Finally the sun engulfs the starswatching over the horizon,the fronds say “look at me,I will give you an infinitepalette of green that will…


  • ODE TO THE GODS

    You, who have walked herethrough the ages,who have watcheda million suns swallowedby untiring waves,what is it you expect?There is nothing here for youthe spirits of the old oneshave long since fledour sharpened blades,retreated with the starsinto the hillsthat rise from forest.The animals will cometo you no morefor we have served them upas a sacrifice to…


  • ONCE A HOME

    They arrived again as the sunprepared for impending departure.The wetland is verdant and smallan area the developer reluctantlyset aside for nature, not knowingor caring that the birds who oncecalled this whole area home,a thousand and more each eveningare now crowded into this aviantenement, gone are their spacious homesgiven over to ours, but the birds knowwhen…