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.
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by Richard Subber | Aug 26, 2022 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
…makes the fairy filigrees…
The water way
The vaulted glen preserves the cold calm,
enwraps the stillness,
enfolds the shrouded bowers,
hushes the tiny creatures
that do not sleep,
and graces the febrile stream
that ice cannot subdue,
the frosted flowing stream
that falls from freckled rock
to ledge to pool,
and foams awhile,
and pauses, turns,
and makes the fairy filigrees
that hang in air,
and finds its familiar course
in channels that defy
the glaze of winter.
September 7, 2019
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shawshank Redemption
A world I do not want to know…
by Stephen King
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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 | Aug 14, 2022 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry
to get closer…
Life lesson
Why do we unlearn the joy
of pushing against the glass?
Why do we let slip that impulse
to get closer
to the fabulous new thing
just outside the window,
to lean in to that magic scene,
to get close enough to whisper
in that new squirrel’s ear?
Why do we learn to hold back
just that bit,
so a breath on a frosty pane
will hide the wonder?
Yesterday he pressed as close as he could.
Today I see again that small smudge,
his curious nose must have been cold
for a few moments.
I know he has so much to learn,
but some of it can wait for another season…
January 2, 2020
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: The House by the Sea
May Sarton’s travels, in her mind…
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Aug 6, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Language
language is social cement…
Book review:
Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
by Robin Dunbar (b1947)
British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist
London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996
Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language is a fascinating, comprehensive account of how human beings got language and what it’s good for.
Hint: our ape-like ancestors figured out that grooming wasn’t enough to maintain their social relationships in their reproductive groups, and language made it possible to increase group size (for safety) by substituting for the physical contact of grooming.
Dunbar offers detailed and persuasive guidance on how we manage our social and political (organizational) relationships, and shows that groups that are larger than 150 individuals are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to thrive in and manage. If your work group comprises more than 150 persons, roughly speaking, your boss can’t manage the group and team work isn’t feasible.
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Book review. 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)
–
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 | Feb 20, 2022 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
“…a masque of shades…”
Night watch
Waiting in winter
is easier done in darkness,
night’s hours pass,
for the lone watcher,
en passant, to ease the time,
a masque of shades,
neither droll nor dread.
Withal, the ice shines cold,
the snowy crust shines hard,
and star shine lights the way for
Orion and Aquarius
and Cassiopeia and the rest,
these watchers in the crystal sphere
will guard the transit of the moon,
will do for friends who pass the time
but will not tarry past the dawn.
November 5, 2018
Inspired by “Field,” by Roberta Marggraff in the Aurorean, Fall-Winter 2018-2019
My poem “Night watch” was published in my fourth collection of 55 poems, As with another eye: Poems of exactitude. You can buy it and my other poetry books on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, click here
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
A poem about the right thing
…and the lesser incarnation…
“Vanity”
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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 always welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jan 5, 2022 | Joys of reading, Language
I won’t show you mine…
You can learn something from Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007)
Now, Vonnegut isn’t my favorite writer. Yes, of course, I’ve read Slaughterhouse-Five. OK, that puts me in the “I’ve read Slaughterhouse-Five” category. To paraphrase Woody Allen, the novel has to do with World War II and stuff…
OK, sorry about that downer intro. I don’t incline to sound like a Vonnegut fan when I say that the following anecdote is a glorious insight that moves me.
In 2006, shortly before his death, Vonnegut gave some advice to five New York City high school guys who had written to him:
“. . . Here’s an assignment for tonight,
and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it:
Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed . . .
Make it as good as you possibly can.
But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing.
Don’t show it or recite it to anybody,
not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them . . .
You will find that you have already been
gloriously rewarded for your poem.
You have experienced becoming,
learned a lot more about what’s inside you,
and you have made your soul grow.”
Oh yes, I’m writing my poem now.
Don’t show me yours.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
“…watchers in the crystal sphere…”
”Night watch,” a poem
“…friends who pass the time…”
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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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