Don’t make resolutions…do something good

Don’t make resolutions…do something good

 

I avoided reading any of the “Best of 2023…” stuff

because I figure I can do a lot better by hitching my wagon to one of my stars

     and stepping right through the door into 2024.

 

OK, you can tell that I don’t mind mixing metaphors.

 

Just let me say this:

There are a lot of reasons to do things right—or more right—in 2024.

I’m committed to do what I can, according to my lights.

I’m going to try to grab all of my chances to do something good.

That’s my way of saying Happy New Year.

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.

Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

 

“the last time…”…is it a thing?—my poem

“the last time…”…is it a thing?—my poem

remember the urgent joy…

 

 

no mo’

 

…of course there’s no harm

   to thrill in the doing of the thing,

“the last time” are tempting words

   that rush too quickly to my lips,

 

I hear their echo

   as I rush to the finish,

and only then

   do I wonder

      why I don’t remember

         the urgent joy

            of the first time,

and the rich learning

   of all the other times,

 

and now I see

   that the last time

      is, of course, a rare moment,

but I want so little of it…

 

September 19, 2023

 

Cutting the grass used to be a thing.

I don’t miss it.

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

Loneliness beyond understanding…

by Herman Melville

click here

Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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Poetry alive!…“a desperate sun”

Poetry alive!…“a desperate sun”

Poetry alive!

 

As I write my kind of poetry, it happens often that a creative way is to imbue the inanimate things with human attributes, to hear the stones weeping, to believe that the owl called to me…

I find vivid elements in otherwise tolerable poems by other poets, including many whose names you and I know, and including others whose obscurity may not be fully deserved.

By chance I read “Hermes of the Ways” by Hilda “H. D.” Doolittle (1886-1961). In pre-WWI London, she joined Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington to form the original Imagist trio of poets. I am not visibly quivering to read more of her work but I offer here brief praise for her formulation, thus:

 

“…Apples on the small trees

Are hard,

Too small,

Too late ripened

By a desperate sun…”

 

Her casual introduction of an unsuccessful sun invites the reader to take a bite, nevertheless, and chew on the douleur of that big yellow thing in the sky…

“Hermes of the Ways” by Hilda Doolittle, published in Vol. 1, No. 5, of Des Imagistes, February 1914,  as posted online on November 13, 2016,  at  Poets.org

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.

 

Home Team: Poems About Baseball (book review)

Edwin Romond hits another homer…

click here

 

Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

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“A man’s job”…a Christmas poem

…Becky and the baby are waiting…

 

 

A man’s job

 

I won’t sell my trees.

The balsams would go quickly

   at “cut your own” prices,

but I tell my neighbors, again this year,

there will be no cutting

   on this old slope that spills down

      to my little barn.

 

Day is darkening,

and I move among my trees.

This one, bent and broken

   in last winter’s snows,

has grown,

the birds of spring may nest

   in its green spaces…

 

and now, from below,

the boy climbs to me, his head down,

his father’s axe in hand,

he has changed since his father died,

he tries to do a man’s work,

he will have little time

   for baseball with the other boys.

“I told Momma I would find a tree,

to make a Christmas for Becky and the baby.”

 

So.

He holds his axe in both hands,

and he stands straight in my field.

I extend my arm.

“Go find a good one,

I can help you carry it home.”

 

December 1, 2018

 My poem “A man’s job” was published in my third collection of 64 poems, In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, click here

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife

Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…

click here

My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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“we unwrap our hearts…”…“Santa’s helpers,” my poem

“we unwrap our hearts…”…“Santa’s helpers,” my poem

wrapping in the dark hours…

 

 

Santa’s helpers

 

Bows and ribbons all around,

we’re on the floor

   wrapping in the dark hours,

and we unwrap our hearts

   and share great gifts,

again and again.

 

December 25, 2022

Inspired by “Every Christmas Eve” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, December 25, 2022, on her website, www.ahundredfallingveils.com

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Tales from Shakespeare

summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…

click here

Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

 

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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