by Richard Subber | Feb 10, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
Whence the wisps…
riverine
Whither the barren shapes
that rise from the horizon,
and lose their form
as they climb the sky?
Whence the wisps that fill small voids,
the remnants of those banks,
the shapeless swirls
of pink and white and grey?
They don’t stay, defying names,
always shifting to new frames,
making night into day,
drifting as they will,
the vault is a vast current,
the waifs of one-time clouds
fill and roil the channel,
without sound,
such patient change,
a nameless river over all…
November 26, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
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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 | Feb 5, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
not so very far away
walking along
With heartful eye
I see you walking in beauty.
I walk your garden,
its far wall of flowers
draws my gaze,
I may see you walking there,
I may join you…
The wall of flowers
may be the end
of the garden,
it may be a boundary,
maybe you are
not so very far away,
maybe you can see me…
September 29, 2025
for my dearest one
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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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 | Feb 3, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
without a lot of passion
Book review:
A Shropshire Lad
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990
51 pages
reprint of the “Authorized Edition 1924”
Alfred Edward Housman embraced the late 19th poetry style of relentless rhyming,
which limits word choice and the scope of imagery.
His narratives are very simply credible without a lot of passion. It’s too easy to let a singsong rhythm be the main feature of verse after verse after verse. A lot of his poetry is written in iambic tetrameter.
Housman’s A Shropshire Lad does offer some paths to reflections, as in Section II, which is an
acceptance of the reality of the seasons, and acceptance of the reality of the rhythms in our lives,
and a recognition of natural beauty that surrounds us:
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Scarlet Letter
the beating hearts…by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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 | Feb 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.
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.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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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 | Jan 29, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Reflections, World history
…the last battle never comes…
Book review:
We Were Soldiers Once…and Young
Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway
New York: Random House, 1992
412 pages
Like Moore and Galloway, I salute the brave American and North Vietnamese soldiers who fought and died in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965 in the first major combat action of the War in Vietnam.
We Were Soldiers Once…and Young is a bloody testament to the grinding horror of war. It’s too much to read all at once. It has too much death.
A North Vietnamese commander who was on the ground in the valley recalled, many years after the war, that his guiding principle had been “win the first battle.”
He forgot to mention that no one knows how to win the last battle and end all of it.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Movie review: A Doll’s House
Henrik Ibsen’s classic on abuse…
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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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jan 27, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
losing the green…
seeing more
Again the dried leaves drift as they will,
they find their place,
they give up shape,
they make a final damp.
The trees just seem to let them go,
they waste away to litter,
the wind just seems to let them go,
they lose their green,
they come to earth,
a brittling maze, the huddled leaves,
they cease their swaying,
they cannot catch the sun,
nor make a shade,
they don’t look back
to scan the sky,
to see the bosky dells,
to gaze at vistas
that now attract the light…
The leaves have done
with hiding the thrusting trees
and the valley views
and the glades that tempt the doe
and the empty nests
that warmed the chicks…
November 7, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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