by Richard Subber | Jun 14, 2026 | My poetry, Other, Poetry, Reflections
Loneliness, en passant…
Shivering
I take a stand in the cold tonight,
this frigid porch is bare,
in deadened, yellowed light,
a chitter of rustic sound is near…
I guess that loneliness could find a home here.
I guess I might feel warmer in the dark.
February 1, 2018
It was only a few moments, a mere chance to feel lonely,
I let it pass…
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 | Jun 11, 2026 | Book reviews, Books
…achingly real characters, such love…
”And here I have lamely related to you
the uneventful chronicle
of two foolish children in a flat
who most unwisely sacrificed
for each other
the greatest treasures of their house.”
from “The Gift of the Magi” in The Four Million
by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910)
Published April 1906
If you’re an O. Henry fan, you know the whole story of Della and Jim, the two foolish children who sold a beloved gold pocket watch and an entrancing fall of brown hair to buy innocently painful Christmas gifts for each other…even if you’re not an O. Henry fan, I’ll bet you know the story.
“The Gift of the Magi” is a signature O. Henry piece, with achingly real characters slip-sliding through lives shackled by just a touch too much hardship and garlanded with magnificently understated and oh-so-richly-expressed love, such love as never recedes or withers…
Mr. and Mrs. James Dillingham Young unselfconsciously give a master class in young love. The reader wants to be one of them despite their shabby flat and the narrow strictures of a tiny income and the endless prospect of a lesser cut of chops frying in the pan on the back of the tiny stove. The single-minded devotion—their profound and profligate endearment—of Jim and Della illuminates the power of O. Henry’s prose, and the delicacy of his imagination.
William Sydney Porter (1862-1910) used his pen name, O. Henry, for his published work. “The Gift of the Magi” was part of The Four Million, his second short story collection, when it appeared in 1906. He wrote more than 300 short stories.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 | Jun 9, 2026 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
heartbeats on display
allegro
The boy was bouncing,
hopping, jumping,
he was on the move,
kids make their world a motion,
an energy,
a swirl,
they test their arms,
and legs,
and fingers,
and their voices,
and their faces,
and ways to look around
and through their spaces,
and sounds that are new words
in their worlds,
they do not share
their racing thoughts,
but they put their heartbeats on display,
their disporting has no end.
Do you remember that part of you
is a child?
Will you let that part of you
bounce with joy?
Your inner child wants to jump,
now.
March 28, 2026
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 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 | Jun 6, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
They’re not in the family albums…
I guess only American kids who are too young for preschool have never seen a picture of the Pilgrims who went ashore in Cape Cod Bay in November 1620.
There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower. Maybe you know that only about half of them were religious Separatists, the refugees from persecution in England that we now know as Pilgrims. Many in the other half came, for non-religious reasons, to what no one was yet calling “New England.”
The “Pilgrim” image is so well known I won’t annoy you with an extended description. You know, the black hat with the buckle, the fowling piece with a bulge at the end of the barrel, the (arguably apocryphal) Thanksgiving scene with Indians and overflowing tables and rosy-cheeked women and kids having a good time…
Here’s a thing: more or less, we don’t know what the Pilgrims looked like. There is only one surviving portrait (Edward Winslow) of those hardy pioneers. Francis Dillon, in his book The Pilgrims, says that the surviving first-person accounts include a description of someone’s beard, and a reference to the height and hair color of one man.
Otherwise, nada. Of course, no selfies. Nothing on YouTube. No family albums.
How many people alive right now in America have never been photographed?
Four hundred years from now, it’s a good bet that someone will be able to figure out how good looking you are right now.
Source:
The Pilgrims, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975
by Francis Dillon
from the Preface
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lord of the Flies
Never more relevant…
by William Golding
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many waters: more poems with 53 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 | Jun 4, 2026 | American history, History, Tidbits
It’s a good story, at least…
“The most valuable of all talents is that of
never using two words
when one will do.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
3rd President of the United States
He was a Republican when it was rather democratic to be a Republican.
The historical record doesn’t really suggest that Jefferson was as tight-lipped as this maxim implies.
Perhaps it would be more meaningful for ordinary folks like us if he had said something like “don’t use 38 words when a few of them, well-chosen, will do the job.”
Furthermore, let’s keep in mind the contemplative observation by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) that praiseworthy prose and poetry—and in general, talking—has a lot to do with using “the best words.”
‘nuff said.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
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many waters: more poems with 53 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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