by Richard Subber | Apr 8, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
blinking, not blinking…
Owning the trail
The sun was high,
the patient rays
striped the forest floor,
tree tops swayed enough
to nudge the shadows,
a bird sang half a song
way down the hill,
an angry squirrel
sailed across the trail
and stared at me,
he didn’t blink.
I walked the next turn,
and stared without blinking,
an eight-point buck
looked back at me,
he stood still
as his woman and kid
rambled across the path
and disappeared
in the hydrangea,
he didn’t budge,
he seemed to be daring me
to make a move.
He showed no fear,
he owned the trail,
I was the stranger with two legs,
I looked at him for moments,
I faced him moments more
as I shuffled back
around the turn,
and shambled from his world.
The sun was high,
the shadows trembled,
I walked away through empty woods.
February 6, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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 | Apr 6, 2025 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
through the looking glass…
Movie review:
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Frances McDormand can do comedy, in case you were wondering.
She plays the title character in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008, rated PG, 92 minutes).
Guinevere Pettigrew is a middle-aged, lonely, unlucky governess looking for work—any job will do—in London in 1939.
She gets mixed up with a flibbertigibbet American celebrity whose lifestyle is different, way different. She steps onto the fast track for a while. There’s a fair share of wide-eyed gaping on the part of Miss Pettigrew.
Miss Pettigrew obviously has her own set of moral standards, and her own expectations about what life should have to offer, and her own approach to living the good life.
Miss Pettigrew steps through the looking glass for a time, does her best to make things better for everyone, and finds a gentleman who’s willing to share her tomorrows.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
here’s the other story of the American West…
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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 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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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”
* * * * * *
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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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 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
it’s all-American adultery, oh yeah…
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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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 15, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
it’s not “extra”…
Book review:
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren, with Carlye Adler
New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017
286 pages
I tried meditation once, about 20 years ago or so, and, I confess, I didn’t stick with it.
It seemed like an “extra” thing to do, and I think I felt like I was busy enough.
Harris makes a believable case for giving it a try.
He has good news, in part: you don’t have to sit cross-legged with your knees painfully lowered, you don’t have to pick any kind of “mantra,” and you can start off with 5 or 10 minutes a day—and he repeatedly says “one minute of meditation absolutely counts.”
I’m retired, and now I know I have the time to meditate if I feel like it.
I can count my breaths, so I can get started.
I’ve tried it a couple times already, and, I confess, I think there is a welcome stillness connected to the whole thing.
I think there may be a new way to be me.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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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”
* * * * * *
