by Richard Subber | Mar 23, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Politics, Reflections, Tidbits
Too many gulfs…
Hand me that hammer
This lightening sky pulls my eye
upward from newly darkening earth.
Our troubled plain
has no points of light just now.
We face fears, terrors, hates, imprecations,
repudiations, exclusions…
Too many gulfs appearing,
too few bridges imagined
in the grim thoughts of too many.
I will build one bridge today,
I welcome this lightening sky
to ease my work.
November 9, 2016
I work on building a bridge every day.
I try to do a good thing every day.
That’s good for me and for America.
It helps to keep me sane.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: All The President’s Men
The men and women
who crave power…
by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
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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 20, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry
warm blasts of beautiful…
Book review:
The Asking: New and Selected Poems
by Jane Hirshfield (b1953)
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023
343 pages
There is lots to like and lots to pass over in Jane Hirshfield’s poetry.
Most often her style boils down to the “wild child” type, apparently she’s not too concerned with the idea of “the best words in the best order.” Many of her poems strike me as disorderly, albeit enthusiastic.
I think it’s worth reading through Hirshfield’s The Asking collection to get the taste and the occasional warm blast of beautiful insight and intuition. Here’s a taste:
“Stone did not become apple….Yet joy still stays joy.” (from “Counting, New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain to Me”)
“She closed her eyes,
opened her mouth
to receive the end of her life.
Its last tasting.” (from “A Day Just Ends”)
“The impossible closes around
like a smooth lake
on an early morning swim.” (“Everything That Is Not You”)
“How sad they are,
the promises we never return to.” (from “Autumn Quince”)
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Book review. 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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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 18, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
again is anew…
…and old sneakers
We move, we huff,
we quiver, we chant,
thoughts galore will tumble
as the hot routine deepens,
the workout is good,
no doubt,
we mime the young
as we get old,
we walk the track,
the countless reps,
the 1-2-3, the look-and-see,
the bobbled step,
the front and back,
the in-and-out…
This cheerless time,
this silent gym,
this jumbled gear,
the shadowed clock…
look the same as yesterday,
but…
I conjure me,
a brand new thought,
a slower step,
I see a different future,
the silence is a private tune,
I whisper behind my eyes
that more is more,
again is anew,
the moving is progress,
it is long moments in my life.
November 24, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
–
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 | Mar 15, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
it’s not “extra”…
Book review:
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren, with Carlye Adler
New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017
286 pages
I tried meditation once, about 20 years ago or so, and, I confess, I didn’t stick with it.
It seemed like an “extra” thing to do, and I think I felt like I was busy enough.
Harris makes a believable case for giving it a try.
He has good news, in part: you don’t have to sit cross-legged with your knees painfully lowered, you don’t have to pick any kind of “mantra,” and you can start off with 5 or 10 minutes a day—and he repeatedly says “one minute of meditation absolutely counts.”
I’m retired, and now I know I have the time to meditate if I feel like it.
I can count my breaths, so I can get started.
I’ve tried it a couple times already, and, I confess, I think there is a welcome stillness connected to the whole thing.
I think there may be a new way to be me.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Address Unknown
A friendship corrupted by Nazi hatred in WWII
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
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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 | Mar 13, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
don’t bite back…
“How much better it is to take the opposite course
and not to match fault with fault.
Would any one think that he was well balanced
if he repaid a mule with kicks
and a dog with biting?”
Seneca (4 BC-65 CE), On Anger (De Ira), 3.27.2
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
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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”
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