“…the great brutes…”  “Revelation,” my poem

“…the great brutes…”  “Revelation,” my poem

behind the frosted mist…

 

 

Revelation

 

 

Beyond my domain, I leaned ahead

   to cross the slope

      under a brazen sky.

In the chill of dawn, I stopped.

 

The apparition…

A bull appeared.

 

He turned his horns to me,

showed no fear,

no gaze of knowing,

no sentient nod,

he stepped away…

 

Another creature shambled near,

regarded me with innocence,

and scarcely paused,

his brawny flank rippling slowly

   as he passed on…

 

I stretched my eye

   to the scant egress

      of these beasts with iron mien.

Indeed, I had not crossed the path

   of a rambling herd.

 

I chanced to find

   the portal of an ancient furnace of the gods,

who took such wild ores as they desired,

and stoked their smokeless fires

   behind the frosted mist,

and conjured life,

and smelted the great brutes—

   cold-forged in the chill of dawn—

      who stepped heavily across my path

         and did not mistake me

            for their kind.

 

January 7, 2020

Inspired by this quotation:

“I had seen a herd of buffalo, 129 of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.”

by Isak Dinesen

in Out of Africa (1938)

 

My poem “Revelation” was published in my sixth collection of 73 poems, Above all: Poems of dawn and more.

You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),

or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”

“Revelation” also was published in my fifth collection of 53 poems, My first name was rain: A dreamery of 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 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Seven Gothic Tales

by Isak Dinesen,

lush and memorable stories…

click here

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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“…do not interrupt the music.” Book of Sirach 32:3

“…do not interrupt the music.” Book of Sirach 32:3

to everything, its season…

 

 

“Speak…but…do not interrupt the music.”

 

Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 32:3

 

Listen whenever that seems best.

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

The Man Who Never Was (book review)

Ewen Montagu tells his story

click here

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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

it’s the not knowing…Anne Lamott quote

it’s the not knowing…Anne Lamott quote

hold hands and take a step….

 

 

“So we started where we were, in the not knowing.”

 

Anne Lamott (b1954)

November 20, 2023

 

It isn’t the not knowing where we want to go,

it’s the not knowing exactly how to get there

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

iambic pentameter, y’know?

da DUH, da DUH, and stuff…

“In search of”…my poem

click here

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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

“a wild portal…”…“Passage,” my poem

“a wild portal…”…“Passage,” my poem

a ripple in the sward

 

 

Passage

 

I think to pass the wetlands,

my humdrum steps

   in line to cross the fen,

a thoughtless stroll

   to reach the other side,

but a ripple in the sward turns my foot,

a wrinkled phosphor turns my eye,

I stand, agape, at a wild portal,

its door ajar.

 

I am steeped in wonder.

 

I bethink a new imagination

   of the end of day,

I hurry through,

and, oh!…

 

December 19, 2020

Inspired by “Wilderness Doorway” by Jennifer Lagier, in the Aurorean, Vol. XXV 2020

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: The Bartender’s Tale

Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…

click here

Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 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.

*   *   *   *   *   *

To Serve Them All My Days…movie review

To Serve Them All My Days…movie review

getting there…

 

 

Movie review:

 

To Serve Them All My Days

 

There is an utterly familiar plot line in To Serve Them All My Days (TV mini series, 1980-1981, 11 hours, 13 minutes): a Welsh coal miner’s son survives World War I, and becomes a teacher at a boys’ school in England south of Wales, and grows in his role to become the beloved avuncular headmaster.

John Duttine energetically plays the protagonist, David Powlett-Jones. Everyone calls him “P. J.” or “Pow-Wow,” with love and respect.

P. J. quite remarkably discovers that his calling, his life’s work, is with the faculty and boys at Bamfylde School. He judges everything from this perspective.

Much of the tale is an unfamiliarly rich creation of manifestly human characters who deal with the slings and arrows of life, and make the best of their worlds to give willing, deserving boys a good education and a glimpse of how to live a decent life.

The dialogue is above average in many scenes, and you will get inside the minds of the key players. There is enough reflection and imagination and longing and joy/despair for any discerning viewer.

No spoiler alert is needed here. You can’t possibly be in doubt about how the story ends.

In this story, getting there is the point of the journey.

 

Based on the 1973 novel (same title) by R. F. Delderfield.

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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: The Snow Goose

…it’s sensual drama, eminently poetic…

by Paul Gallico

click here

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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

right or wrong? look deeper…

right or wrong? look deeper…

think of all the angles…

 

 

“When you are confronted

with a seemingly painless moral choice,

   the odds are that

        you haven’t looked deeply enough.”

 

p. 154

 

from What It Is Like to Go to War

by Karl Marlantes

New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011

256 pages

 

Another reason to think twice.

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…

click here

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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