world

May 31, 2023

EVER FAITHFUL

We are, after all, merely human
so we are fraught with questions
and lacking answers, willing
to take things on faith on occasion.

Take God, for example, although
some say He is uniquely exemplary,
we want to know if God is a he,
a she, or to cover all our bases, a they.

And when we ask for a sign we
often look to the heavens as if
God only operates locally, even
Moses knew a bush would suffice.

Actually we hunger for signs now,
in a world gone mad, cursing free
will, wanting proof, when all we
need do is marvel at nature around us.

May 21, 2023

CALLING

As I age, I more willingly accede
to the sirens call of sleep
for as night washes over me
pulling up its blanket of stars
she takes me on a voyage
to destinations she will
not disclose until our arrival.
The journey may be pleasant
or the seas of night can be
roiling, but her grip is firm.
But in her never certain world
age can slough off, fall away
until my body and its increasing
frailties and limitations slip away
and my youth is no longer
a memory, but on this night
or that, it is my new if transient reality.
But I dare not cling to it, for
the sun will intercede again
and drag me back to the body
I so willingly escape each night.

May 9, 2023

LOOKING GLASS

There are several problems with
Alice and her adventures, and
while how she found a rabbit hole
large enough to go down
it is certainly one of them,
but the larger question,
the unstated question, is how
a second person made the trip
and where that person was from.
It seems that he/she was present
before the rabbit appeared
for he/she knew precisely what our Alice
was doing while sitting on the riverbank.
So we can assume he/she came
from our world, but then we
must ask was he/she a stalker
for he/she never spoke to Alice
as far as we know, or a friend,
or just possibly Alice dropped
a tab of acid while sitting
on the riverbank, for that
would explain the whole story.

April 20, 2023

AT PRESENT

Somewhere in the world
at this very moment,
something remarkable
is being laid to ruin.
It is our nature to tear down
what we cannot understand,
what we hold different,
what does not comport
with our present view
of how things ought to be.
Somewhere in the world
at this very moment
something remarkable
is being born,
is being created,
is arising
out of an idea,
a thought, an emotion.
We are all
somewhere in the world
at this very moment.

First apeared in Peacock Journal, February 2017
https://peacockjournal.com/louis-faber-three-poems/

April 7, 2023

MARKING TIME

Life Is of limited duration but we
never know what that duration is
until the moment it ends, and then
we have no reason to care.
But as we age and that period
necessarily shrinks, some pause
and wonder what’s left, wonder
what they might have done differently,
where they would be today if they had.
But they don’t stop to consider that
every moment spent in the past
is a moment taken from the present
and stolen from what the future offered.
You want to keep your memories, but
the price of storage is great, so there
is a tenuous balance to maintain.
Still your past is a shadow that
follows you, and the question is
whether you want to spend ever
more precious time looking
over your shoulders rather
than engaging the world around you.

March 21, 2023

WWYD

How often have I seen something
like WWBD – what would Buddha do –
but lately I’ve stopped
to think about that.

What if old Gautama Siddhartha
were to arrive here, now,
what would the Buddha do
in a world gone wholly mad?

Would he bother with sutras,
bother with teishos to the few
still willing to listen, or would
he check himself into a good
psychiatric facility where
he would be left alone
most of the time, to just sit
and contemplate how it is still
possible to find the emptiness
of the five skandhas and easily
sunder the bonds of suffering
if they think you crazy,
and just where does all that
leave the rest of us, pray tell?

March 11, 2023

ACCESSIBILITY

Technology has afforded those of us
with impairments the ability
to more fully participate
in the world around us.

However we can never lose sight,
a painful use of the phrase
in my case, of its imperfections.

Perhaps it is merely anticipating
the future of our species, as when
the phones captioning decided
a somewhat elided Marsha and Barry
was in fact Martian berries.
As crazy as that seems at first,
looking around at how we
have laid waste to this planet
exobiology and exobotany
may be the last and only
hope for our species, but
I do wonder how they will taste.

March 9, 2023

CERTAIN MORNINGS

There are mornings
when I wish
I could be the cat,
sit in the corner,
close my eyes and
watch the world
suddenly disappear.
The cat breaks
my reverie, purring
there is room for one
and this role
is all mine.

First appeared in The Flying Dodo, Issue 4, January 2023
https://fantasyfantasywave.wixsite.com/my-site/louis-faber-certain-mornings

March 4, 2023

WRITTEN

It was written for all to see
but went unseen as no one
entered the portal willingly,
never sufficient curiosity
to offset the foreboding.
Everyone knew what it said
but knowing and seeing are
separated by an unbridgeable chasm.
It remained an imposed solitude,
an isolation inherent in location,
implicit in a world spinning
off its moral axis, time extended
and compressed, an irregular pulse.
It was written in a long
forgotten language, a warning
etched into the walls of time
faded from inattention, left
to stare out knowing the outcome
they would never see until it arrived.

February 25, 2023

THEATER OF THE ABSURD

If Aristophanes were suddenly
to arrive here, he would no doubt
pause, but with the eye he had,
would soon discover such a treasure
trove of material, he could produce
comedies to last several lifetimes.

The problem would be in finding
the right audience, for here we have
little taste and patience for the sort
of comedy at which he was so adept,
and wit in language has long been
forgotten in our blunt, in your face
world of entertainment, and his
natural audience in ancient Greece
would never imagine a world
so badly screwed up that even
Kubrick would be hard pressed
to bring Dr. Strangelove into the present.