by Richard Subber | Aug 27, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
talk trash to the wind
des arbres et vents
The trees do not seek the wind,
but they grow where it goes.
A tree knows its work:
a tree stands in rain
and growth happens
time after time,
and a tree stands in snow
and holds it aloft
for us to see,
and a tree welcomes critters
who need a high place to live.
Every tree tempts the breezes
and taunts the wind,
boughs do not break
as they beckon all winds,
the limbs slide and sway
and push the wind aside,
the trees eat the wind
under sun and stars,
each tiny twig, each lazy leaf
talks trash to the wily wind
that knows about the detours
in great worlds of open air,
but won’t give up the endless gift
of giving the trees
a reason to bend
as they turn the wind
into wrinkles that slump and hide,
among the unseen nests
of the birds and squirrels.
May 23, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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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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by Richard Subber | Aug 22, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
I realize new truths…
now then…
The unknowable future
has been around for a long time,
it is,
it will be,
the mystery is what, not if.
I realize new truths.
I’m closer to my future
than I used to be,
I’m closer to my final future.
I think more about tomorrow,
I think more about today.
Sweet futures can become sweet nows,
the nows I can know.
I can choose my next now,
I do not know tomorrow’s future,
I will live it in good time.
May 11, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
“Tear it up,” says Kurt Vonnegut
“Write a six line poem, about anything…
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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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by Richard Subber | Aug 18, 2024 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
don’t pretend this isn’t true…
“We almost always know what the right thing is.”
from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016
p. 156
don’t try to forget this
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
–
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 | Aug 15, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
what’s it all about?
another thing
j’ever notice
that they never look up
to look at the phone?
head tilted down,
the obvious sign,
body still,
thumbs awhirl,
faintest breaths…
how often have you seen
someone pumping a fist
and shouting “yeah!”
after scrolling down
one more time?
Try talking to that guy
in the waiting room
who hasn’t looked up
from his phone
since he sat down…
think about being him…
it won’t take long.
May 9, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
1491 by Charles Mann (book review)
…lost American legacies
–
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 | Aug 10, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
a chime in the dark
Another time
That single chime,
sometime in night,
there is no rhyme,
try as I might
I cannot conjure
a dancing wight
who sings that tune,
no song sublime,
no twist of rune
that I can write.
I let the chime expire,
I savor it entire,
perhaps Great Pan
may favor it
to puff his pipes,
and thrill the mime
in pagan rite,
in distant time.
May 8, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
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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 | Jul 27, 2024 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections
think again about democracy
Book review:
Our Ancient Faith:
Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
247 pages
Despite the title, Guelzo’s estimable book is not primarily or thematically about Abraham Lincoln. It is a densely researched and completely explained treatise on democracy, what it means, and what it might mean.
Our Ancient Faith opens new vistas of thought for me, and I’m thankful for my newly conceptual ideas about democracy, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Make no mistake, democracy isn’t inherently our salvation. We’ve got a lot to do as we go down that path.
Granted, the reader will learn about Lincoln, although a good grounding in Lincoln’s life story and his times will serve the reader well.
I’m a bit leery of believing that I know for certain what a dead man was thinking when he said this and that. Guelzo perhaps reads too deeply into Lincoln’s recorded words. The book certainly is not hagiographic, and Lincoln certainly was a deep thinker, but I don’t want to forget that Lincoln was an ambitious man and a politician.
I’ll be inclined to read the book again for the expansive exposition of political thought.
The book, with extensive notes, is 247 pages, a very sensible length.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
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”
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