by Richard Subber | Sep 22, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
teasing for recognition
facta
She has a plan.
The cotton balls are vital,
she keeps a handy supply of
cardboard and colored paper,
tape is essential,
tape is the key
to all exactness in the doing,
speed is not exactly the entire reality
but deliberate haste is her style,
she builds with mute devotion to the outcome,
identity is not so needful
as function and connection,
her creatures are elegant monstrosities,
her temples are sturdy elaborations of design
and form that find barely imagined boundaries,
her hybrids tease for recognition
in their own dimensions,
her work is her success, her doing, her design.
She’s busy, she never looks up…
July 21, 2019
If you have good stuff, you can make anything.
It helps if you can imagine everything.
My poem “facta” was published in my eighth collection of 57 poems, Empyrean: new poems.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The Wind and the Lion (1975)
heroic, the way it was…(movie review)
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many waters: more poems with 53 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 | Sep 17, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
so much of life
a welcome
wandering in the woods,
wondering in the woods,
feeling like a stranger,
listening for the friendly sounds
and the queries
of the creatures
who will remain after I go,
finding the old trail,
walking the old bend,
recalling the blissful view
of water and bank and dam
and old dead tree
that won’t bud and won’t budge.
The woods are dark and deep,
and they make a welcome
in the shady spots,
and they urge a walker
through the sunny spots,
and they sing a ceaseless song
for all who listen.
So much life,
and little deaths too,
but so much life.
July 21, 2026
Image courtesy of Nancy Bryant
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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In high meadows: poems abide with 60 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 | Sep 12, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
a thing of great wonder
getting closer
The word “finality”
seems to be on my mind,
I don’t think the end is near,
but I think of it more often.
I don’t think I’m afraid to die,
but it can be a thing of wonder.
My younger me had almost no time
to think of ending,
but now it seems more real.
July 12, 2026
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Blithedale Romance
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…
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In high meadows: poems abide with 60 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 | Sep 8, 2026 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
each layered wave…
Ashore
This place, it has no words for me.
The ocean makes its thrum,
it pulls the bow across the longest string…
Each layered wave aspires to end in surf,
and lightly bears its encumbering crest,
wavers at the sandy lip
and rolls beneath the swell,
makes room for every motion
that was born afar in blue water,
and sidles now to make a final turn,
becomes mere rhythm…
May 6, 2021
Ogunquit, ME
It was high tide at the Beachmere Inn.
The broad curve of the bay accepted the languid procession of modest waves…
it all seemed so unexceptional,
but I know that each wave is unique until it gets to the shore line.
The tableau did not speak to me.
I know that my presence was not needed.
Published in Creative Inspirations, January-February 2023.
My poem “Ashore” was published in my eighth collection of 57 poems, Empyrean: new poems.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
A Farewell to Arms (book review)
classic Ernest Hemingway
with relentlessly realistic dialogue…
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In high meadows: poems abide with 60 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 | Sep 6, 2026 | Poetry, Reviews of other poets
Got “repining”?
I read lots of poetry—colonial, classic American, modern—and I don’t find much that I like.
This is puzzling to me. I think hard about what I like and dislike about poetry, especially my own poetry. I’m still not prepared to offer any explanation much beyond my sincere failure to discern anything meaningful in the kind of poetry I classify as “obscure,” you know, the wayward romp through disconnected words and disjoint images, and the wanton disregard of verb tense/pronoun antecedents/subject and verb relationships/sentence structure…I think you may have seen this kind of wantonly weird stuff:
“Sky falls cloud sheep bray at starry islands in my hoping
are them my lost love I step around the dog poo…”
I just rapped that out this minute. No poetic inspiration involved. It doesn’t make me proud. I’m trying to get to a point:
I’ve read a bit of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Longfellow was a lyric poet who tried his hand at free verse, although much of his work is constrained to the often stultifying shackle of line after line and page after page of rhyme. Longfellow writes at length. I confess I can’t make myself keep turning the pages to read “Evangeline” and “The Song of Hiawatha.” I do understand that this fashion of poetry was written and enjoyed before the successive advents of radio, TV, Sony Walkman and the internet. I guess reading a poem for an hour or so was more doable in the 19th century.
Longfellow does offer something to me in his more bite-size poetry. He was a capable wordsmith and he dreamed out images and insights and perspectives that appeal to me, and even nudge me to wakefulness.
In “Snow-Flakes” he placidly describes a snowfall:
“Out of the bosom of the Air,
…The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air…”
In “The Rainy Day” he says something we all know:
“…Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.”
Thus, in Longfellow, something of poetry.
Admit it, we don’t use “repining” often enough
in our casual conversations.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: A Cold Welcome
The culprit was global cooling,
500 years ago…
by Sam White
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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 | Sep 1, 2026 | 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.
Casserole
A plump expanse,
delicious reds,
maybe good enough to eat,
the vault is filled,
it lures the eye,
it makes a feast.
May 13, 2026
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shawshank Redemption
A world I do not want to know…
by Stephen King
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In high meadows: poems abide with 60 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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