by Richard Subber | Mar 28, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
to kiss the eye…
More
No one of the ancients
could have imagined this space,
this high empty shell
that interrupts the sky
without a bird to swoon and sigh,
this inside place
that feels so wide,
with more of space than shape,
with more of stretch
and more of up
than edge or end.
This court was built
to kiss the eye
and swallow sound,
it pulls the senses off their rails,
there is less of small,
and more of reach,
it conjures birds to nudge still air.
Atrium of Saint Vincent Hospital
Worcester, MA
June 1, 2018
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
“Tear it up,” says Kurt Vonnegut
“Write a six line poem, about anything…
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 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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by Richard Subber | Mar 26, 2024 | History, Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
more than a war story….
Movie review:
Eye of the Needle
Good vs. evil is the undercurrent of Eye of the Needle (1981, rated R, 112 minutes) but the drama is in the living and the dying of the fully believable characters: Donald Sutherland as the WWII German spy—“die Nadel”—and Kate Nelligan as Lucy, who becomes his nemesis.
A worldly viewer can easily guess the ending of this movie, so it’s not really a spoiler to say that Sutherland, the brutal German spy, has the Allies’ Normandy invasion plans and is trying to get them to Germany when he is shipwrecked on a remote island off Scotland. Lucy, a patriotic English woman who is the wife of a sheep farmer on the island, falls in love with die Nadel before she figures out what he is and kills him.
Die Nadel is desperate, but human. Lucy is lonely, but ultimately she rages to do the right thing. The brief seduction scene is a lover’s delight (brief nudity). The awkward interaction of the two reluctant lovers is credible. The violence is matter-of-fact and vicious.
Eye of the Needle works as a war story, a spy story, and a love story. It won’t put you to sleep.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 23, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
Each layered wave…
Ashore
This place, it has no words for me.
The ocean makes its thrum,
it pulls the bow across the longest string…
Each layered wave aspires to end in surf,
and lightly bears its encumbering crest,
wavers at the sandy lip
and rolls beneath the swell,
makes room for every motion
that was born afar in blue water,
and sidles now to make a final turn,
becomes mere rhythm…
May 6, 2021
Ogunquit, ME
It was high tide at the Beachmere Inn.
The broad curve of the bay accepted the languid procession of modest waves…
it all seemed so unexceptional, but I know that each wave is unique until it gets to the shore line.
The tableau did not speak to me. I know that my presence was not needed.
Published in Creative Inspirations, January-February 2023
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Mila 18
horrific truth by Leon Uris
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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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 21, 2024 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, World history
lots of personal drama
Book review:
Battle of Wits:
The Complete Story of Codebreaking
in World War II
by Stephen Budiansky (b.1957)
New York: The Free Press, 2000
436 pages with index, detailed notes
It is a bit disappointing to me that Budianky’s well-researched work is focused on American and British codebreaking work during WWII, with relatively little said about the opposing code work of the Axis powers.
Nevertheless, Battle of Wits is a personalized and engaging account of the people involved in codebreaking that began, with baby steps, in the years following WWI.
It’s a lot to read, the personalities are dramatically presented, and there is a fair amount of technical stuff, so the book can satisfy both casual readers and the techies.
If you think you know a lot about Enigma and the Japanese code work and all of the half-truths about codebreaking in the second great war, read this book and learn some more.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” sure were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
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”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 19, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
behind the frosted mist…
Revelation
Beyond my domain, I leaned ahead
to cross the slope
under a brazen sky.
In the chill of dawn, I stopped.
The apparition…
A bull appeared.
He turned his horns to me,
showed no fear,
no gaze of knowing,
no sentient nod,
he stepped away…
Another creature shambled near,
regarded me with innocence,
and scarcely paused,
his brawny flank rippling slowly
as he passed on…
I stretched my eye
to the scant egress
of these beasts with iron mien.
Indeed, I had not crossed the path
of a rambling herd.
I chanced to find
the portal of an ancient furnace of the gods,
who took such wild ores as they desired,
and stoked their smokeless fires
behind the frosted mist,
and conjured life,
and smelted the great brutes—
cold-forged in the chill of dawn—
who stepped heavily across my path
and did not mistake me
for their kind.
January 7, 2020
Inspired by this quotation:
“I had seen a herd of buffalo, 129 of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.”
by Isak Dinesen
in Out of Africa (1938)
My poem “Revelation” was published in my sixth collection of 73 poems, Above all: Poems of dawn and more.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
“Revelation” also was published in my fifth collection of 53 poems, My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
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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.
* * * * * *
