an old writer and his words

  • VINO

    The vines cling to the hillside, the small buds soon yielding fruit but now simply soaking up the spring sun. You dream the grapes are fat, the deep purple orbs holding in their Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, and you only wish it would wash down the hillside and stain the sometimes fetid River. The boats flow…

    Lou Faber

  • IN VINO

    The vines cling to the hillside, the small buds soon yielding fruit but now simply soaking up the spring sun. You dream the grapes are fat, the deep purple orbs holding in their Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, and you only wish it would wash down the hillside and stain the sometime fetid River. The boats flow…

    Lou Faber

  • IN VINO VERITAS

    He is convinced he is simply squeezing the sun out of each plump orb. The sun lies within, but he lets it kiss its skin goodbye before pouring the sunshine into the oak barrels where the sun will have time to concentrate until it slips over the lips perhaps on a cold autumn day and…

    Lou Faber

  • WHAT IS IT NOW, PILGRIM?

    It is far past time that I went on a pilgrimage. I’m not at all sure just what sort of a pilgrim I’d likely be. As a now Buddhist child of the late 60’s, the Plymouth Colony model clearly isn’t workable. And in my own late 60’s, now with a fused spine and creaky knees…

    Lou Faber

  • QUARTET

    An evening summer retreating in the face of autumn, two garnacha, a piano, bass, drums, her voice lifts the weight of the sky and we float up on a melody, unchained. In heaven George and Ira smile and we, here, smile with them.

    Lou Faber

  • FUNEREAL

    The priest droned on, a short passage from Micah had some questioning prophecy. Within the coffin we suspect Agnes too grew even more impatient, wanting final rest, wanting the party to begin, hating the tears. Later, with wine flowing, somewhere in the gray sky I imagine her knowing wink.

    Lou Faber

  • ANGRY, BUT ONLY A LITTLE

    You want it spicy, but just so that the tongue remembers it a moment after the mouth has moved on, a lingering sense of having been present. It should be a mantilla, a shawl, not the blanket some claim, gently caressing, lighting up the plate. Its host, freshly from the rollers, was born for this…

    Lou Faber

  • SATORI

    The empty wine bottle nestling the foot of the postal box wants nothing more that to speak its mind but it is forsworn to silence, and stares into the old Maytag box tucked in the alley next to the dumpster. The bedraggled man sits against the wall and debates the meaning of knowledge with the…

    Lou Faber

  • PARTIALLY WHOLLY

    It is incredibly difficult to be a truly holy man, it isn’t enough to inspire peace with your words and presence, you had better walk on water, turn water into wine, heal with the touch of a single finger. You can’t simply stand up for justice at the risk of your own life and limb,…

    Lou Faber

  • REMEMBERED

    She said she recalled the spilled glass of wine that stained her white linen blouse. She said the city swallows people like a hungry beast that will never be sated. I taste the summer sun and the sweetness of an early rain in the Shiraz that foretells approaching winter. The city is a cat that…

    Lou Faber