by Richard Subber | Nov 18, 2025 | Human Nature, Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
“…sounds that do not invite love…”
I know that much of ordinary human conversation
is essentially gossip about people we know,
experiences we’ve shared, and everyday occurrences.
Technically, even if you think you don’t gossip,
most likely you do quite a bit, every day.
Babel
The buzz of the crowd.
Social noise is so tolerable,
so remarkably incidental,
essentially careless communication,
public talk for private ears,
an imperative stream of disposable words.
Profoundly human noise.
No other creature babbles while feeding and drinking,
no other creature squanders such precious energy
to make noises that do not bring food,
to utter sounds that do not invite love
and do not demand respect.
No other creature is so fond of gabble,
so willing to abandon privacy
and say so many words
that almost no one wants to hear.
December 5, 2015
Pervasive gossip, de facto, is neither good nor bad. Most human beings incessantly communicate with each other.
My point is that gossiping in public can be noisy, intrusive, distracting, wondrously irrelevant, and, occasionally, disgusting. Usually, I really don’t want to hear your half of the cell phone conversation.
Now, talking—that’s a different story.
Talk it over with your friends.
My poem “Babel” was published in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected 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 2025 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 6, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
your own slow smile grows…
Book review:
The Price of Salt
by Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Must Have Books, 1952,2021
166 pages
“…(Carol’s) slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly,
her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before.
Therese walked toward her.”
As you read the last words of The Price of Salt, your own slow smile grows. It’s a love story that ends happily.
The story of the love story is challenging—it embraces peaks of happiness and vales of sadness and anger. Like every love story, I guess.
Carol and Therese are different personalities, they imagine different lives—but they never stop seeing their future lives together after their completely serendipitous first meeting. They never stop struggling to get to the future. Therese says: “Everything’s not as simple as a lot of combinations.”
Highsmith tells a compelling story, but she makes the reader work for it. The prose is congested, there are quirky side trips in the action, the men in their lives are more caricature than personality, and both Carol and Therese repeatedly invite the reader’s patience as they try to think about what they’re thinking about.
It doesn’t stop the smiles from growing.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
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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 | Nov 4, 2025 | Human Nature, Poetry, Reflections, Reviews of other poets, Tidbits
Write yourself a note…
. . . what of your rushed and useful life?
Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note:
“Gone to the fields to be lovely. . .”
by Lynn Ungar
Indeed.
Color me gone.
Give yourself permission to be lovely.
From “Camas Lilies” by Lynn Ungar in Blessing the Bread: Meditations. © Skinner House, 1995.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
–
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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 30, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading
the fish isn’t the thing…
Book review:
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952
127 pages
The old man has a name. Santiago. He is a perilously old fisherman. He has befriended a boy, a helper—but he fishes alone.
The Old Man and the Sea isn’t about the sea. You know what it’s about. It’s about the old man, a big fish, and the vicissitudes of life concentrated in one long, lonely, painful, heroic, unsatisfying, and redemptive fishing trip.
Santiago lives a life after he hooks a marlin that is too big for him to catch. He suffers, he marvels, he learns about himself, he lives a dire philosophy, he yearns for help as he endures the hours, he accepts again and again that he is responsible for his life that may end quickly.
Santiago unknowingly shares his boat with fate and chance. He gives up his illusion of control when the sharks begin to destroy his prize.
He returns to his solitary life ashore, and the battered carcass of the fish tells no tales.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Blithedale Romance
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 23, 2025 | American history, Human Nature, Politics
good habits, bad habits…
Lincoln feared that
“democracy required habits of behavior
that people simply could not sustain.”
from:
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
247 pages
p. 142
Right now I’m not aware of a lot of good news.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 18, 2025 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
Frankie could marry your sister…
Movie review:
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank
You think Clint Eastwood can’t be a heart-throb sensitive guy, the kind of guy who you wouldn’t mind at all if he married your sister?
Million Dollar Baby (2004, rated PG-13, 134 minutes) is a bona fide tearjerker about a world class, down-on-her-luck lady boxer who ultimately brings out the best in her very reluctant trainer and surprises no one by becoming the love of his life.
Hilary Swank is Maggie, the wannabe boxer who can’t afford her own speed bag but has the spirit and the right moves that make her a world champion.
Eastwood is Frankie, who ekes out a low profile life as the owner of a broken down gym and disdains being a trainer for “a girl.” Maggie finally persuades him, and then love very slowly takes over.
There’s lots of action in the gym and in the boxing ring, but the real action is directed by the fat little cherub with wings and a bow and arrow.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen
…his bleak insight into human nature
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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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