The Book of Days…part liv

The Book of Days…part liv

The Book of Days

 

The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.

There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”

It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.

 

 

Looking up

 

pale pink it is,

the rising sun salutes the night

   with hues that last

      a little while,

then slip away,

and cue the day.

 

August 20, 2024

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

Loneliness beyond understanding…

by Herman Melville

click here

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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goodness, a small flame…

goodness, a small flame…

pass the light forward…

 

 

“The goodness inside you is like a small flame,

and you are its keeper….

so long as your flame flickers,

there will be some light in the world.”

 

from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016

p. 201

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

84, Charing Cross Road (book review)

Helene Hanff, on reading good books…

click here

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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“…Bobby always knows…”…“bearly,” my poem

“…Bobby always knows…”…“bearly,” my poem

bears thinking about…

 

 

bearly

 

I think I’m running away—

I don’t know where to go,

I still love Mommy and Daddy,

they don’t want to come.

 

Bobby wants to come.

 

Bobby grabs my hand,

he always smiles,

Bobby’s not a real bear

   but he’s a real friend,

 

he’ll stay with me

   in case I get lost

      ‘cause Bobby always knows

         which way to look

            to see the way home.

 

April 22, 2025

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Lord of the Flies

Never more relevant…

by William Golding

click here

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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“this sky is big”…   “Immensity,” my poem

“this sky is big”…   “Immensity,” my poem

it chases clouds…

 

 

Immensity

 

A pith of sky

   throughout the vault,

it chases clouds,

it hides most stars—

   the brightest blink

      their way to dawn,

a lazy crescent moon

   reclines atop the trees,

repines, obscure…

 

This black, immense,

this night enfolds,

this sky is big.

 

September 29, 2024

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

To Serve Them All My Days…movie review

how to live a decent life

click here

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”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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Atonement…book review

Atonement…book review

a lifelong quest…

 

 

Book review:

Atonement

 

by Ian McEwan (b1948)

New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2001

351 pages

 

Atonement is a story of the profound sadness of a child. The sadness is a burden on several lives. McEwan invites the reader to learn to understand the life of a child who learns to understand that atonement can be a lifelong quest.

The child Briony knows she is a writer. She spends most of her life trying to understand how writing can be more than a fancy, and learning how to make it a substitute for real lives.

Briony, mature and nearing her own death, writes the final draft of her regrets for the childish impulse that unmade the lives of her beloved Cecilia and her beloved Robbie.

Briony learns that atonement can fill every space in a life, and she learns that atonement can be impotent.

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife

Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…

click here

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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

A poet is a fountain…Rainer Maria Rilke

A poet is a fountain…Rainer Maria Rilke

the wisdom of Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

“Pour yourself out like a fountain…”     

 

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Bohemian-Austrian poet

 

Rilke wrote with nuance. Spend some time with his poetry. A second or third experience with his lines often exposes the reader to poignantly different understandings, new intuitions, lusciously incremental meanings…

Apparently he did not intend “Pour yourself out like a fountain” to be explicit advice for poets, but I think the phrase does good duty for that purpose. Especially I like the exhortation to “pour.” I’m happy when my poems are a gushing reflection of what I feel and see.

Rilke offered more. His full statement was:

“Pour yourself out like a fountain.

  Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking

  finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.”

 

That’s good for a second read. Think fountain-ish.

 

Source:

Rainer Maria Rilke, Part Two, XII, of The Sonnets to Orpheus, 1922

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost

he hears bluebirds talking…

click here

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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