an old writer and his words

  • A CITY LIKE ALMOST ANY OTHER

    somewhere within three blocksof here a limo is disgorgingor swallowing up passengers a child is dreaming of takinglessons on a piano or violinof Carnegie or Alice Tully Halls a woman is rememberingwhat the touch of his fingersfelt on her cheek, tracing her jaw, not shattering it,a tagger prepares for battlecarefully loading his makeshift holster after…

    Lou Faber

  • SUNDAY NIGHT

    It is almost midnight.If this was Seoul, the Hilton,I could walk down the hillto Namdaeman Marketand wander around the shopsthe smell of the city, of pigs headssimmering in giant caldrons,fish lying on beds of melting iceand look at silk and stainlessflatware, watches and celendoncasting its faint green glowin the fluorescent night,but it is Virginia and…

    Lou Faber

  • SABBATH

    Fourth floor, Antwerp Hilton, night encasing the Schelde, ragout of boar and claret slowly regurgitating, I pause ancient words, stutteringly said, hand on my head a shoddy cover two parts of eight fully remembered one section only in part, turning East or a best guess. I ask nothing, or perhaps too much it is hard…

    Lou Faber

  • NIGHT

    In the end, it always comes down to night, regardless of the moon, if any, it’s faint light drowned by the city’s oppressive glow, headlights, streetlights and once, spotlights painting the sky, traceable down to that new place we don’t wish or can’t afford, would never dare to go. Death is omnipresent, his shadow is…

    Lou Faber

  • BACK IN THE DAY

    My uncle and I would sneak away from the seemingly endless party, no one wanted to attend and couldn’t leave. We go up to my room and turn on the radio. He’d want to look for the Senators game, but they’d left town and no radio could pull in Minneapolis anyway, but despite Killebrew, Arbitron…

    Lou Faber

  • AMONG THE MISSING

    We can sit for a time, and speak of our pains, how they cause us to stop and look inward while the world proceeds on it’s axis, in a slow march through time and space, and we share the anger and anguish of our too fallible bodies which time reclaims in slow progression. We do…

    Lou Faber

  • DE GUSTIBUS

    As the last of the wine glasses is put back on the shelf the Brut recorked and the dishes set in the tray to dry we take a slow walk after the meal hoping the arrabiatta sauce will be less angry, the pasta less weighty, when we arrive back home to the sofa and the…

    Lou Faber

  • MINNESOTA

    The night fully settles over northern Minnesota in the sky grows dark as the stars make their reluctant appearance. Peering through the tall grasses of the wetlands abutting the road 1000 stars are born and die in an instant only to be reborn again repeatedly, until they are replaced by the beetles that accompany the…

    Lou Faber

  • TRICKSTER

    Coyote no longer inhabits the hill south of our city. Yet we know he is there, staring down at the lake, watching the grape clusters fatten on the vines. We cannot see the orange-red orbs of his eyes on a still winter night. We know he sees us. Coyote cannot be found, no carcasses attest…

    Lou Faber

  • ON THE FLIGHTLINE

    We sit on our lanai, which the birds will tell you is the backyard of their preserve and watch the sun bid its blazing farewell to this day. The birds begin their scheduled return, ibis in groups, the self-declared top guns flying in hot and flat, only dropping their arrestor hook as the approach the…

    Lou Faber