by Richard Subber | Apr 14, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
I welcome the time…
I decided to entertain myself at breakfast in the Linden Ponds Café
by doing this little re-write
of Robert Frost’s memorable poem, “A Time to Talk.”
I kept his rhythm and rhyme, I made the text a bit smoother,
I think I preserved his earthy friendly tone.
A Time to Talk, Rick’s version
When a friend calls down to me from the road
and slows his horse to just a walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
on all the hills I haven’t hoed,
and shout from where I am: “What is it?”
I know to welcome time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
blade-end up and five feet tall,
I start to climb to the old stone wall
for a friendly visit.
February 3, 2025
Hingham, MA
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Frost’s original version, it’s in the public domain:
A Time to Talk
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
The British wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
–
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 | Apr 9, 2026 | Joys of reading, Language, Reviews of other poets
I’m open to being tantalized…
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men”
from “The Hollow Men,” 1925, by T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)
American-British writer, popularly acclaimed as a great poet of the 20th century
At long last, I’ve tried T. S. Eliot’s poetry.
I respectfully think that T. S. Eliot’s poetry is a bloomin’ wasteland…
Maybe I’ll put Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot back on the shelf, and try again after a while.
Maybe not.
It’s not that I mind Eliot’s deliberate contradictions so much. I’m willing to be provoked. I’m open to being tantalized. I’m ready to be pushed or pulled outside my comfort zone.
The sticky point for me, with Eliot’s poetry, is that I never seem to get to the point, or maybe I simply don’t get the point. When I get to the end of one of his longish poems, I’m really not sure where I started, or where I wandered, or where I arrived.
I find little coherence in Eliot’s words and phrases and passages.
I think of myself as a wordsmith, and I love the beauty of elegant phrases and shimmering, specific, steely, selective, stately, splendid words that tell a delicious story or evoke a bloom of emotion.
For my taste, T. S. Eliot’s poetry isn’t tasty, and it’s a bloomin’ wasteland of jumbled words, fractured images, and unfinished imaginations.
If you’re wondering where all the flowers have gone, don’t look for answers in Eliot’s work.
Source: T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1958), 101.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
“Fishering,” by Brian Doyle
…what meets the eye…
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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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by Richard Subber | Apr 7, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
we did it…
once…
We did a big thing.
We got dressed up,
invited family and friends,
said the words,
traded rings,
danced at the party,
drank the champagne,
stood for the picture,
rolled away in the car…
we started our lives together.
September 28, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 2, 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.
to come
The star of day
troubles low clouds
in the earliest dawning,
there is none of day,
the horizon a muddle,
the faint light
pushes the high dark,
a promise strains in the vault.
November 16, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Sea Runners
…it informs, it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
–
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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by Richard Subber | Mar 29, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
touching, of course…
Caress
Seeing you each day
is part of the fullness
of my life,
you live in my world,
I feel your touch,
I hear your laugh,
your murmurs are music,
the bright of your eye lives on,
the squeeze of your fingers
surrounds my hand.
All of me loves all of you.
January 4, 2026
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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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 | Mar 26, 2026 | Poetry, Reviews of other poets
No ring to grab here…
Book review:
Almost Complete Poems
by Stanley Moss (1925-2024)
New York: Seven Stories Press, 2016
Almost Complete Poems represents much of the life work of poet Stanley Moss.
The poems appear to be sincere babble. Moss is literate but undisciplined. The poems lack coherence.
It’s not my life’s work to read them.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
Loneliness beyond understanding…
by Herman Melville
–
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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