by Richard Subber | Jun 14, 2025 | Joys of reading, My poetry, Poetry
…only small shadows…
Dreamery #1
The scraggly disarray of an old farm yard
was the milieu,
not a real place in my memory,
but a scene I could understand.
The dream was realistic in its detail,
jumbled in its action.
I’m no farmer, I had no impulse
to harvest any dream theme,
I was there in fact.
I was a witness without a question.
I felt no urge to end it.
I had no curious thought.
In the old barn I sensed
a history in every damp corner,
an unfinished story in every heap
of debris that marked a process without progress,
in remnants of machines,
in the gear of abandoned projects
that made only small shadows
on the untidy floor.
The cowgirl and the kids who urged
their clattering horses
through this carelessly cluttered scene
were noisy,
but I couldn’t make out their words…
Outside a squad of ragtag soldiers
shambled into view,
wearing remnants of antique uniforms,
maybe they had guns,
with no fierce mien among them…
these were militia, maybe,
with no impulse to rush to battle,
no inspiration to huzzah,
no flag to die for…
Their leader was a faded heroine of dream time,
a broad-hipped fat woman
in some style of tunic,
no memorable face,
yelling for services and a campsite and supplies,
in some style of a martinet, it seemed,
but not convincing…
I sensed that there was no apparent reason
for this ersatz troop to be there,
it seemed that they wanted
to be somewhere else.
For a moment, I felt some sympathy.
July 27, 2017
Often I don’t remember my dreams. I was aware that there was no particular reason to remember this one. It was not a particular dream. This is one particular way of saying that.
My poem “Dreamery #1” was published in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected poems. 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 2025 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
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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 12, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Reflections
let’s talk about relevance…
Book review:
The Fabric of Reality:
The Science of Parallel Universes—
and its Implications
by David Deutsch
New York: Penguin Books, 1997
The Fabric of Reality is intriguing, but it’s also hard work.
I think I “understand,” to use Deutsch’s word, that he likes to talk about the Big Bang and the so-called Theory of Everything.
Personally, I find it interesting to know something about his “four main strands,” namely, quantum physics, epistemology, the theory of computation, and evolution.
Nevertheless, I embrace a willingness to suspect that the esoterica of physics and a philosophy of physics are essentially irrelevant to the lives that nearly all of us lead.
You can read the whole book if you want to.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review:
Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
sincere, but off the mark…
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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 | Jun 7, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading
intensely human emotions…
Book review:
Small Things Like These
by Claire Keegan (b1968)
New York: Grove Press, 2021
118 pages
Much of Small Things Like These qualifies for an “ordinary” description, but the reader repeatedly is invited to experience such intensely human emotions that it’s troubling to turn the page and continue reading…
Bill Furlong, a coal dealer living a small life in a small town, rescues a forsaken girl, and understands that there is “fresh, new, unrecognizable joy in his heart,” but he dreads what is “yet to come…” The girl is a hapless pawn in an enduring evil reality.
Keegan knows how to tell the reader about that joy, in her smooth and enticing prose that creates credible people living credible lives in a small place that makes room for great hearts.
She gives us reason to imagine that more people are willing to do good.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Who Built America?
…including people
who got their hands dirty
by Christopher Clark and Nancy Hewitt
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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 | Jun 5, 2025 | Human Nature, Joys of reading, Reflections, Tidbits
just the same…
“I do miss her,” he answered, and sighed again.
“Folks all kep’ repeatin’ that time would ease me,
but I can’t find it does.
No, I miss her just the same every day.”
Fisherman Elijah Tilley talks about his deceased wife, he calls her “poor dear,”
in Sarah Orne Jewett: Novels and Stories
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)
The Library of America
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1994
p. 477
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 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”
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by Richard Subber | May 27, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Language, Reflections
these characters are yearning, yearning…
Book review:
Victory
by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1928
412 pages
It may be that it is enough to say about Victory that it is lush prose that wraps around your mind and leaves you sated at the end of every chapter.
Conrad’s style, I dare to say, is not for every modern taste. It is dialogue-rich. The action is spare. For me, the essential appeal of Victory is the reflective context of the characters’ state of mind: their imaginations, their aspirations, their candid self-assessments.
In Victory, there is enough honesty, enough resignation, enough disappointment, enough yearning to make you feel like you want to claim that your life is good.
At least, good enough.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
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 | May 22, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
What if we run out of fish?
Book review:
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2014
319 pages
The unsurprising but unfamiliar takeaway from The Sixth Extinction: global climate change isn’t the only globally devastating problem that we have to deal with because it may make human beings extinct on our planet.
Mankind and womankind are changing the biosphere of Earth: animals, other living creatures, and plants are being extinguished at a devastating high rate, as a result of human agency. In the plainest terms: we need these animals, other living organisms, and plants in order to survive. There is no substitute for them.
We’re not just talking about a few snail darters in an environmentally endangered stream somewhere, and Kolbert isn’t doing sloganeering about “save the whales” or anything like that.
Extinctions of important elements in the natural food chain are continuing and accelerating, as a result of humans’ ability to interact with nature in both positive and negative ways on every land mass and body of water on the surface of the globe. Changes in the environment and changes in the food chain are happening too fast for many species to adapt and survive. What do we do if bees stop pollinating our fruit trees? What do we do if the oceans continue to become more acidic and won’t support the fish stocks we rely on for food?
The Sixth Extinction is a frightening read. It’s also a more difficult read than it needs to be: Kolbert’s prose is engaging and literate (this isn’t a beach book, no way), but it seems like she wrote two different books and then shuffled their pages together. Her devastating and irrefutable message is nearly obscured by her detailed treatment of example species like penguins, foraminifera, graptolites, corals, and little brown bats. Be prepared to skim.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review:
American Scripture:
Making the Declaration of Independence
…basically, it’s trash talk to King George
by Pauline Maier
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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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