an old writer and his words

  • ANTWERP

    It is seven in the morning Antwerp arises slowing in winter the small bar along seldom used quays of Schelde is almost empty, one old man tottering on his stool swaying to breath head pressed on the counter. Young couple, she brown haired pale white skin against white sweater, he long blond woven into a…

    Lou Faber

  • SENTINEL

    The streetlight is a nocturnal Sentinel staring down. In some cities in other parts of this it could tell of the cries of drunks stumbling from closing bars, ambulances flashing in its cast shadows. On the street with sleeping homes it tells only of the snow that cradles its base.

    Lou Faber

  • IN SOLITARY

    A solitary lentil wrapped in its sauce mantle, having escaped the fork for the duration of the meal, stares up at me, perhaps defiantly my wife suspects it is merely bored at having been moved around so. I stare back at it in what I hope is my most threatening look as the waiter hovers…

    Lou Faber

  • THIN ICE

    When we were much younger we would meet by the edge of the pond each day after winter’s first taste and pry rocks from the bank with frozen fingers, one the size of a fist, others even larger. We would carefully aim and in a crystal parabola watch as they hit the frozen surface, one…

    Lou Faber

  • ARF

    Sitting on the fourth shelf from the top, in the second rank of bookcases in my office is a somewhat worn copy Dylan Thomas is “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.” I can’t admit to ever having read it, or an ability to now recall if I did, but I know I’ve had…

    Lou Faber

  • CHANNELING

    I am swimming strongly, easily my strokes powerful, gliding over the waves that seemed to collapse beneath me. The water is surprisingly warm not the frigidity I expected, more like a now tepid tub, but left too long. I can glance up and see the other side and it is approaching rapidly. This will be…

    Lou Faber

  • FIRST TIME

    It looks perfectly normal, the kind of restaurant you would seek out on a Friday night in a distant city. The people look like those you know or could know, those from home for instance. She is not remarkable, blonde, older, a slightly twisted smile, blue eyes, but on meeting there is a sudden distance…

    Lou Faber

  • WINTER, AGAIN

    The snow began falling this morning the dry, almost greasy snow that defies the plows running up and down the streets, too shallow for the salters to begin. Cars slide to a stop, or nearly so, at the intersection, and you know it is merely a matter of time before two will simultaneously, and there…

    Lou Faber

  • SNAKE EYES

    They roll in, one after the next, after the next, gaps that appear in their rank are soon enough filled. By night you mark them by their red lights, lemmings with no cliff in sight, so they sit one alongside the next in the queue, disgorging their chattering, smiling contents into the vast building, and…

    Lou Faber

  • ARMAGEDDON

    There are a group of them who stare at the sky knowing it is coming launched on its course at the beginning of time which has no beginning. Some say it will be soon others are less certain when but all accept without question its inevitability, and wonder what will remain in its aftermath, seas…

    Lou Faber