by Richard Subber | May 16, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
The pushing, potent, heaving…
Poesy
This is, nearly, what it’s like.
Magma flowing cool, I think,
is nearly right,
the swelling flow,
quite nearly right.
The pushing, potent,
familiar overflowing burden,
is quite nearly truly right.
The heaving rush in one clean moment,
of one clean, bursting, raptured ideal,
it speaks the straining gush of simple words
that stream around and through,
cool fire sparking
as they merge and touch
and match and lodge together.
This is nearly, quite truly,
nearly certain,
quite nearly right.
April 3, 1996
Sanibel Island, Florida
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
How does a poem end?
“Finis,” my thoughts (my poem)
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Apr 4, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
enticements to lingering reverie…
Book review:
Twice-Told Tales
by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
First published in 1837 (first series) and 1842 (second series)
This edition first printed 1911, reprinted 1964.
357 pages.
We preserve the remnants of our youth in chambers of the brain that often are, for good or ill, inaccessible to our conscious minds.
The baubles of memory in Twice-Told Tales are potent sparks that guide us to the once-remembered moments, the enticements to lingering reverie that fills new moments with newly imagined memories that rescue us from once-remembered despair, and fill the blank spaces with second chances.
Hawthorne collected such moments of youth, such bauble treasure, in “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” in the fertile and fervid desperations of four venerable friends who eagerly swallow an elixir that boosts them to a capering re-enactment of their youth—but oh, so brief, so immaterial, so ephemeral that the long glass in the room can only reflect their withered miens, and none of the hot young beauty that they see again, for precious moments, in the emboldened gazes that they share.
Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales include “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and 38 other short stories (originally published in 1837 and 1842) showing off his evocative prose, and embracing a wide range of human emotions.
You’ll be able to find something you like.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” actually were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 25, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
a kind of music of the spheres…
Overture
I stood awhile in prescient dark,
faint sounds of night
were near and far,
a rustling song,
a sylvan chord,
a tiny thrum,
and more—
a downbeat for the dawn to come,
scant chorus rising,
I whispered hallowed words
to make a coda,
and waited for the star of day.
January 21, 2023
Inspired by “Behind Stowe” (1927) by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
A poem about the right thing
…and the lesser incarnation…
“Vanity”
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 30, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
good story telling…
Book review:
The Complete Poems of Sarah Orne Jewett
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)
New York: Ironweed Press, 1999
85 pages
It is a solid, pleasant experience to read the poems of Sarah Orne Jewett.
Mostly her imagery in The Complete Poems is not exalted, and mostly her insights are not life-changing, but she is a compelling story teller and she invites the reader to see what she sees.
That’s good.
Some excerpts:
“And so, across the empty miles
Light from my star shines. Is it, dear,
Your love has never gone away?
I said farewell and—kept you here”
From “Together”
———————————————-
“The nearest daisies looked at me
Because they heard me call;
And they told each other what I had said,
Though they did not hear it all.
And I stood there wishing for you,
All alone on the hill;
While far below were the fields asleep,
And above, the sky so still.”
From “A Night in June”
———————————————-
“I saw the worn rope idle hang
Beside me in the belfry brown.
I gave the bell a solemn toll—
I rang the knell for Gosport town.”
From “On Star Island”
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
A glimpse of the millennial dawn…
witness to the song of the sea…
a nature poem
“Chanson de mer”
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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 | Nov 18, 2022 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
my restless eye
Whither…
I do not see the next turn in my road.
I know there will be choosing,
I know that I cannot turn
both left and right
as need there be,
that some roads
will be traveled only once,
that in my living
I may turn back, betimes,
but the journey is always different
in the second passage.
The known past dims,
and my unknown future
will brighten with every dawn,
and I know there is no certain map
of my next steps—
I am content to round the next turn,
and so to look ahead
to spy the turning
that invites my restless eye.
January 12, 2020
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Cradle Place
by Thomas Lux
poems wrapped in a wet rag…
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Oct 12, 2022 | Human Nature, Language, My poetry, Poetry
…the vanishing point…
Love has a name
She imagined bliss in the dark
on the cool sand.
He numbly spoke his part
in a lovers’ quarrel.
She offered him so many futures together,
paired, and shared.
She offered one exotic future
in her ruby world.
She heard the lovers’ music,
not knowing that he danced
to familiar rhythms
without hearing the tune
that chimed in her heart.
She offered him their futures,
but he ensnared that single one
that would make them one,
he could not release it
to her nurture and her joyful care,
he stole the ruby future and ran away.
He left a lonely rose
and a note with two words
that she could not accept,
and he rushed to the vanishing point
on his horizon.
She held his note, signed with his “G”…
she stared at her empty horizon,
with barely hot tears,
she shuddered in the first searing sadness,
knowing that she had never spoken his name.
Feb 26, 2021
Inspired by The Good Karma Hospital, a 2017 TV series that ran for three seasons. In the last episode, Dr. Ruby Walker learns that her love affair with Dr. Gabriel Varma isn’t a love affair, and is only another example of Dr. Varma’s pathetic inability to make a commitment.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle…
Colin Woodard makes it easier to understand…(book review)
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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.
* * * * * *
