by Richard Subber | Mar 25, 2025 | Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections, Tidbits
forget the small potatoes…
“…stop seeking the impossible,
the short-sighted,
and the unnecessary.”
from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016
p. 101
Of course, I realize that each person has a personal definition of “the impossible, the short-sighted, and the unnecessary.”
The point is:
Forget about what you can’t change, and forget about the small potato stuff.
Commit to doing a good thing.
Commit to resisting the bad stuff that touches you in ways you can avoid.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Ethan Frome
not being satisfied with less…
by Edith Wharton
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Mar 23, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Politics, Reflections, Tidbits
Too many gulfs…
Hand me that hammer
This lightening sky pulls my eye
upward from newly darkening earth.
Our troubled plain
has no points of light just now.
We face fears, terrors, hates, imprecations,
repudiations, exclusions…
Too many gulfs appearing,
too few bridges imagined
in the grim thoughts of too many.
I will build one bridge today,
I welcome this lightening sky
to ease my work.
November 9, 2016
I work on building a bridge every day.
I try to do a good thing every day.
That’s good for me and for America.
It helps to keep me sane.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: All The President’s Men
The men and women
who crave power…
by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
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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 | Mar 18, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
again is anew…
…and old sneakers
We move, we huff,
we quiver, we chant,
thoughts galore will tumble
as the hot routine deepens,
the workout is good,
no doubt,
we mime the young
as we get old,
we walk the track,
the countless reps,
the 1-2-3, the look-and-see,
the bobbled step,
the front and back,
the in-and-out…
This cheerless time,
this silent gym,
this jumbled gear,
the shadowed clock…
look the same as yesterday,
but…
I conjure me,
a brand new thought,
a slower step,
I see a different future,
the silence is a private tune,
I whisper behind my eyes
that more is more,
again is anew,
the moving is progress,
it is long moments in my life.
November 24, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
–
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 13, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
don’t bite back…
“How much better it is to take the opposite course
and not to match fault with fault.
Would any one think that he was well balanced
if he repaid a mule with kicks
and a dog with biting?”
Seneca (4 BC-65 CE), On Anger (De Ira), 3.27.2
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Feb 27, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
Prepare for the future, don’t try to plan it…
Book review:
Range:
Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David Epstein (b1983)
New York: Riverhead Books, 2019
355 pages
We don’t know the future.
We can prepare for it to happen by sampling life and all it has to offer.
We don’t have to choose a career track
or a life path all at once when we’re young.
Most successful, satisfied people change jobs and change goals during their lives.
“Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you.” (p. 290)
Don’t “decide what you should be before first figuring out who you are.” (p. 289)
Michelangelo “left three-fifths of his sculptures unfinished.” (p. 164)
“Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations.”
Quote from Paul Graham, cited on p. 163
You don’t have to start out committed to one specialized goal or career or life path.
It’s OK to experiment with life, and to keep switching to another thing that interests you more.
It’s OK to take advantage of a lucky break, and make a move in a different direction.
Epstein says it more convincingly, in more detail, with plenty of facts to back up his argument in Range.
p.s. Epstein didn’t start out planning to be a shrewd observer of human nature, but he got there.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
“Fishering,” by Brian Doyle
…what meets the eye…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Feb 23, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
our little space…
touch
…some easy talk is all we need,
brief moments are the time,
quick smiles come and go,
and linger
and last,
familiar words we share,
we cross our paths,
we laugh in our little space,
our fingers touch,
and touch,
we’re friends, we know that much.
September 23, 2024
Published in March-April 2025 issue of Creative Inspirations
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Remember the Tallahatchie Bridge?
Molly Johnson sings it right…
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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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