by Richard Subber | May 13, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
you hear what you hear…
andante, redux
Maybe we hear the music
we want to hear,
maybe each ear
hears its own sound,
maybe Beethoven
really didn’t have a problem,
maybe music really is
a many-splendored thing,
maybe the cranky tunes
I hear now in this empty lounge
are sweeter music
to the madame
who intently pushes the keys,
and stares at her old pages
cramped with penciled mementos,
and waves off
brief words from a passerby,
and hears that pastorale
as she played it long ago
with nimbler fingers
and a steady foot,
and charmed some children,
and some friends,
and a lover,
and nodded with Beethoven’s shade,
and never guessed
that she would play
that tune again
as I wander by
and briefly hear my version,
and wonder about her music.
Feb 20, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | May 8, 2025 | Joys of reading, Language, Tidbits
ink stains on the philosopher’s stone…
“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold;
they change the world into words.”
William H. Gass (1924-2017)
American novelist, philosopher
Gass had his way with words. If you’re a serious reader, check him out.
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | May 6, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
in my dreams…
before waking…
In this dream, again,
I will climb to high meadows
to invite another trace of you,
to feel a zephyr
that has filled your hair,
to see again your deep smile
as you climb the slope
to show me
how happiness arrives,
to bring a kiss
that fills me
with sweet longing
for your arms
that hold me,
in this dream that fills our sky.
May 23, 2023
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The tiny sound of the surf…
…listen for the sea…”Listen,” my poem
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | May 1, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
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.
away
A dirty pancake cloud
slides across
the base of the vault,
the rest of the sky is void,
a void is the best of the sky,
these dawns are easy to forget.
October 16, 2024
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lafayette by Harlow Unger
He was a great man. Also rich and lucky.
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Apr 29, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
always in transition…
moonish
A wasted wafer
wanes in
the low morning sky,
waiting for the end of day,
waiting to be the moon again.
October 20, 2024
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lord of the Flies
Never more relevant…
by William Golding
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Apr 26, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
Romantic historical fiction doesn’t get any better…
Consider the art of Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950)
Novelist extraordinaire
Sabatini was a more popular writer during his lifetime, when his trademark works of romantic, principled historical fiction were more accessible and more acceptable. If you have not read Scaramouche, you have deprived yourself. You will feel yourself to be a better, more lavishly happy person after you read it for the first time. There is the occasional swordplay in his novels, however, I warn you, most of the time his characters do nothing but talk. I think that’s all you need for a book review.
My interest here is to share a sample of his ingenious and engaging prose. This is from Saint Martin’s Summer...in fact, these are the first two paragraphs of the first chapter:
“My Lord of Tressan, His Majesty’s Seneschal of Dauphiny, sat at his ease, his purple doublet all undone, to yield greater freedom to his vast bulk, a yellow silken undergarment visible through the gap, as is visible the flesh of some fruit that, swollen with over-ripeness, has burst its skin.
“His wig—imposed upon him by necessity, not fashion—lay on the table amid a confusion of dusty papers, and on his little fat nose, round and red as a cherry at its end, rested the bridge of his horn-rimmed spectacles. His bald head—so bald and shining that it conveyed an unpleasant sense of nakedness, suggesting that its uncovering had been an act of indelicacy on the owner’s part—rested on the back of his great chair, and hid from sight the gaudy escutcheon wrought upon the crimson leather. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, and whether from that mouth or from his nose—or, perhaps, conflicting for issue between both—there came a snorting, rumbling sound to proclaim that my Lord the Seneschal was hard at work upon the King’s business.”
Maybe that’s all you need for a book review.
Eat your heart out, John Grisham.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much
came before the Pilgrims
by Alan Taylor
–
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”
* * * * * *
