by Richard Subber | Sep 18, 2025 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
I see futures…
More than coffee…
Polly has a name tag.
I don’t have a name tag.
She sees me as I am.
She doesn’t know what I see.
She sees now,
I see futures, more for her than for me.
When I slumped in this booth,
I thought I wanted coffee…
I think what I really want
is to be really ready
to be the old man who is already me.
What I want is to warm myself
with old joys in new ways,
what I want is the promise
of all my yesterdays,
the promise of kissing my beloved
at tomorrow’s dawn,
what I want is to be remembered
by my grandchildren.
What I want is to tell Polly, gently,
to see her futures with my eyes,
to pay attention to the memories
that are piling up,
to let herself rejoice in the tomorrows,
to start learning
what kind of old lady she’s going to be…
She stands there,
somehow looking down
on the mountain of my years,
with her order book in hand,
and she asks:
“Know what you want?”
May 31, 2020
Inspired by “No Problem” by George Bilgere (b1951)
My poem “More than coffee…” 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 2025 All rights reserved.
The Wind and the Lion (1975)
heroic, the way it was…(movie review)
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 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 | Sep 16, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Reviews of other poets
maybe Mary knows a lot of stuff…
Book review:
Upstream: Selected Essays
by Mary Oliver
New York: Penguin Press, 2016
I’m allowed to say this: I like Mary Oliver’s poetry a whole lot more than I like her essays.
Upstream just seems like a long, lonely walk against the current, even if the stream is a lovely thing in a secret bosky place where being cheek-to-cheek with a turtle may not seem like a completely bad idea.
Oliver loves the narrative style, and she’s happy with much more attention to the details of Nature than I’m able to tolerate.
Her reflections about Hawthorne, and Poe, and Emerson, and Whitman may be spectacularly well informed, and they may be insightful, but I don’t know enough to judge and I do know enough to suspect that no one really knows in great detail what was going on in, for instance, Whitman’s mind when he was endlessly composing and publishing Leaves of Grass. Maybe Oliver somehow knows…good for her if she does. I suspect that she was writing what she wanted to believe.
I’ll stick to reading what I want to read.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bridges of Madison County
If you’re looking for
highly stoked eroticism
and high-rolling lives
that throw off sparks when they touch,
look elsewhere.
by Robert Waller
–
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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by Richard Subber | Sep 14, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Tidbits
the crumbs beckon…
not just cookies…
Don’t reach for the last one,
not yet,
let the full taste linger,
let the crunch
become a munch,
let the crumbs beckon,
lick your fingers
one last time,
then go ahead.
Do it.
Eat the last macaroon.
Say “thank you!”
right out loud,
let everyone hear it!
May 25, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
The British wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
–
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 | Sep 11, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
Check out May Sarton’s poems
Book review:
Good Poems: American Places
Garrison Keillor (b1942), ed.
New York: Viking, 2011
484 pages
Keillor is no slouch when it comes to picking readable poems, I give him full credit for that.
However, there are so many poems here that this volume isn’t selective in any meaningful way.
Good Poems: American Places has themed sections that are obviously different but the topics aren’t obviously useful.
Is there something for everyone here?
Does anyone really care?
I found a few gems: for example, poems by Tom Hennen and May Sarton.
‘Nuff said.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
How does a poem end?
“Finis,” my thoughts (my poem)
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 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 | Sep 9, 2025 | Human Nature, Joys of reading, Tidbits
goal-oriented…
A little girl was diligently pounding away
on her grandfather’s typewriter.
She told him she was writing a story.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “I can’t read.”
When you want to do something,
don’t let most things stop you.
Thanks to my friend George.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Myths of Tet
How people get killed by lies…
by Edwin E. Moïse
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 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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