by Richard Subber | Aug 26, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
you know what to do…
point and squeeze
Shoot me if I start watching TV again.
I don’t want to be
like the old lady in the wheelchair
who turns, with some visible pain,
to gaze at the TV screen as she’s pushed past it.
I don’t want to be
like the old guy in the fitness room
who sits on his exercise chair
and looks up, fixated with mouth agape,
at the TV screen that won’t stop talking.
I don’t want to be
like the people in the waiting room
who can’t stop looking
at the TV screen
with the sound turned down.
Keep an eye on me—you know what to do.
May 14, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The Scarlet Letter, victim of Hollywood
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s version is best
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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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by Richard Subber | Aug 12, 2025 | Reflections, Tidbits
this is so simple…
“Time is more complex near the sea
than in any other place…”
Just think for a sec—how many watches do you need?
From Tortilla Flat in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck, by John Steinbeck with an introduction by Joseph Henry Jackson, New York: The Viking Press, orig. copy. 1953, 1963.
527 pages
p. 109
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 9, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
sand is humble…
my sand
When did I first know
that inside of me
some part is ocean?
I feel the gift
of a swelling crest,
I carry little waves
to make a shore
wherever I may need
to stop and rest,
I see afar with eyes of birds,
I skim a surf
where no one goes,
I walk with you
and wonder
that we may have different sand
between our toes,
the breaker sound
is a familiar call,
you may hear me hum
but can you hear
my offshore breeze,
the plover’s song that
lingers at my ear?
The ocean part of me is older, noisier,
easier, light like driftwood,
calm as sunsets,
sure as tides,
bright as sunrise,
as humble as sand,
eternal like blue water.
April 26, 2025
Inspired by a haiku by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, April 20, 2025.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
–
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.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 31, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
pass the light forward…
“The goodness inside you is like a small flame,
and you are its keeper….
so long as your flame flickers,
there will be some light in the world.”
from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016
p. 201
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 22, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Reflections
a lifelong quest…
Book review:
Atonement
by Ian McEwan (b1948)
New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2001
351 pages
Atonement is a story of the profound sadness of a child. The sadness is a burden on several lives. McEwan invites the reader to learn to understand the life of a child who learns to understand that atonement can be a lifelong quest.
The child Briony knows she is a writer. She spends most of her life trying to understand how writing can be more than a fancy, and learning how to make it a substitute for real lives.
Briony, mature and nearing her own death, writes the final draft of her regrets for the childish impulse that unmade the lives of her beloved Cecilia and her beloved Robbie.
Briony learns that atonement can fill every space in a life, and she learns that atonement can be impotent.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jul 17, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Language, Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections
“…to make lies sound truthful…”
Book review:
What Orwell Didn’t Know:
Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics
Andras Szanto, ed.
New York: Public Affairs, 2007.
236 pages.
This collection by Andras Szanto was published before the Obama presidency and what followed.
Essays by Martin Kaplan, Victor Navasky, and Geoffrey Cowan, in particular, illuminate these insightful, topical revelations about media failure to communicate truths.
George Orwell’s well-known essay, “Politics and the English Language,” is still useful and challenging, almost 75 years after he wrote it.
An excerpt from What Orwell Didn’t Know:
“…the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language…Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind…”
It is a terrifying reality that this statement sounds like it was written yesterday.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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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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