an old writer and his words

  • ISLANDS

    You have no sense of being on an island standing on the corner waiting for the light, caught cursing those who block the box. It is odd having to look up to see the sky, gray on this day, but here the horizon is only chrome, glass and stone. It is only from the 45th…

    Lou Faber

  • AFTERNOON STORM

    From twenty stories up lightning rends the fully fogged sky, a translucent gray curtain hung from an angry black ceiling. Nearby buildings and the streets below fade into misty oblivion. Even the approaching dusk sits back in wonder.

    Lou Faber

  • INDEPENDENCE DAY

    It is Independence Day in Seoul and I am sitting in my room in the Ritz Carlton looking out over closed shops, traffic moving along the streets watching CNN and AFKN. The shops of Namdaemun are closed, you can walk the small alleys as vendors hawk jeans with mis-sewn Guess labels and T-shirts from the…

    Lou Faber

  • ACROSS

    Across the river running limpid as mercury the sky is gun-metal gray and many stand in the windows of their small apartments and stare at buildings sitting like mausolea. On this side of the river running limpid as mercury the sky is gun-metal gray and many stand in the windows of their small apartments and…

    Lou Faber

  • SEOUL OF A NEW MACHINE

    I Apartment buildings sprout, neat orderly, so many headstones in a cemetery marking the gravesite of ancient rural culture. II A slow morning in Itaewon, for you special deal finest leather, best quality gems, but I prefer precipitously plunging prices of Rollex’s last chance, $6. III Apartment building faces studded with small satellite dishes perched…

    Lou Faber

  • NO HAMLETS, WE

    We were the crown princes, then, with an occasional princess, though that was more to maintain the peace. Our kingdom was a square block, and we dominion over all of our territory save the two minefields, well-marked, kept by the Strauss and Herlihy fiefdoms, who refused to pay homage to us, denied us our just…

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING SONG (AWDL GYWYDD)

    The sun creeps down city streets,  dew retreats from the grasses and fills the air, with sweet scent until spent, the bus passes. The robin sits in the tree as worms flee into the lawn. The morning foretells the rain that will slowly drain the dawn. The city quietly wakes and stretching, shakes off the…

    Lou Faber