an old writer and his words

  • LISA, ONCE

    A phone call, a lawyer’s clerk:Can you tell me about Lisa Landesman?I pause for that is a name I havenot heard in forty years, savein a poem I once wrote,now long forgotten. She was my sister for twoor three weeks, adopted like I was,and then Mike, my then fatherdropped dead of a massiveheart attack and…

    Lou Faber

  • FORGOTTEN SOULS

    From the heart of the infernoDante and Lucifer grow boredwaiting, waiting for the ferrywhile Charon stops for lunchyet again at a Greek dinerin the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.They take up a game of catchtossing Molotov cocktails,raining fire onto the brimstone,setting the Styx ablaze.Each knows this is not necessary,for necessity is a creatureof heaven and there…

    Lou Faber

  • OLD SCHOOL

    How much better off would we beif every poet and wanna be werecompelled to write using only paperand a quill pen dipped regularlyinto a small glass inkwell? You must wonder if we would seemore elegance, villanelles, sonnets,and the other forms now lying jumbledin the great literary waste bin. What would we discover if leftto our…

    Lou Faber

  • TUESDAYS ONLY

    Everything important, he declared, should happen on a Tuesday. Wednesday, he explained, was saddled with a deep burden of middleness, rendering it unfit for much else. Friday simply couldn’t be trusted, since five o’clock everywhere came earlier and earlier each year it seemed. The weekend was for battling Sabbaths and there would be no winners…

    Lou Faber