R.W.Haynes

A Modest Operation of Exclusion. A Poem by R.W. Haynes

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A modest operation of exclusion
Extracts the rain-frog from the desert sands,
The cornered mouse from his confusion,
The vaguely dreaming poet from drowsy lands,
And it even explains, eventually,
Why we do not know, even vaguely,
How we wish happiness to be.
And the operator standing by,
Whose merciful, providential hands
Make this story whole so that I
Throw such eloquence at the silent sky?
 
You see how it is. Ever since I fell
Into the Niagara from that hot-air balloon,
I dream of smiling crocodiles in Hell
Feeding me sherbet with a golden spoon.
 
 

On the Savannah River 2013

 
 
R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992. His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009). In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to. In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation. He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.

 
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The Best Tlacoyos in Chickasawhatchee. A Poem by R.W. Haynes

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Back before he was extinct, I mean, of course,
The Great Common-Sense Woodpecker, bless his heart,
You could sit here on the porch, sober as a judge,
And watch pterodactyls chasing the bugs
Back and forth around the glowing moon.
 
Back then, that is, before it all went to hell,
That boy from Bacon County, what was his name?
His daddy drove a log truck, it finally caught fire
And burned down the Primitive Baptist Church,
But the pastor’s German Shepherd barked in time,
And they saved the parsonage. I’ll remember his name,
The boy’s, not the German Shepherd’s, here in a little,
But anyhow, he played the mandolin, not the dog,
Of course, but the kid from Bacon, pretty well,
And he’d park his butt on the steps and play old songs,
“Pretty Polly,” “Darlin’ Corey,” and “Watch Out, Young Ladies,”
And Grandmama, who did watch out pretty well
When she was young, according to her, anyhow,
Would tap her foot as if arthritis was a song.
 
And up in the sky, the constellations danced,
And passenger pigeons flowed across forever,
And old songs fused together like aqueducts,
Washing all the grief away that any of us ever had.
 
 
 
On the Savannah River 2013
 
 
 
R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992. His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009). In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to. In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation. He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.
 
 
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Mona Lisa and the Marlboro Man. Poem by R.W. Haynes .

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Not knowing if wisdom would impulsively fly
Or if it dragged its feet when impulse flared,
She had to make the call and suddenly try
To do what an immortal would have dared,
An Aphrodite, ascending in a flying cart
Drawn by fifty gurgling pigeons at a speed
Which matched the speed of her own matchless heart
And the heartbreaking glory of her need.
Later, back in Laredo, she would say
She didn’t know why she’d taken off that way,
Smiling with satisfaction, recalling when
Her best moments flew by delightfully then.
 
 
He didn’t want anyone saying, “Oh.
This is how I feel,” but people do
Say that, and he said it, sometimes, too,
In unguarded moments, and he would show
How he felt, displaying great disdain
As he lit his pipe, blew blue smoke forth
Delivering himself from aesthetic pain
Incurred by foolish ideas from the North,
And, nodding slightly to appreciate
A tolerable turn of phrase which he
Thought suggested some brain activity,
He let his tobacco counter-obfuscate
Suspicious overflows of raw emotion
Eroding the bedrock beneath her devotion.
 
 

On the Savannah River 2013

***

 
R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992. His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009). In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to. In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation. He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.

***

 
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The Recirculation of the Minimal. Poem. Sonnet. R.W. Haynes.

by 

The name of the play was Don’t Say You’re Here
When You’re Not All There, and it starred, I believe,
Lillian Fish, King Kong, and Lassie, that year
Drawing raves, if memory serves to deceive,
But we didn’t go—there was something about a hat
Or a color, and then World War Three arrived
To gray our heads in weathering all of that,
But though that tempest bellowed, we survived,
And now we stand in line again to see
The same play, this time with Lash LaRue,
A washed-up whale, and Pauline Parlez-Vous,
Newly-dealt ghosts, clear cards where we
Read past and future, as though the present cared,
Or the future somehow knew, or the past had dared.

***
On the Savannah River 2013
***

R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992. His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009). In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to. In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation. He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.

***

 
robin@artvilla.com

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Downtown Waco. Midnight. Heidegger Looks at the Moon. Poem. Sonnet. R.W.Haynes

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The Bush Library really should be here,

For each dead city needs a laugh or two,

A little something so the skeletons can jeer

On nights like this when there’s little to do

And nothing to haunt but the haunting lack of hope

Where words are born to sputter anxiously

Toward brief life in some half-bungled trope

Irrecoverable etymologically.

Is there another cyclone on its way

To re-mix this desperation here?

To make words and deeds mutually obey

A dim correspondence–never more clear

Than the misshapen moon cruising so high

Over the Brazos in the hopeless Waco sky?

***

On the Savannah River 2013

***

R. W. Haynes has taught literature at Texas A&M International University since 1992.  His recent interests include the early British sonnet, and he is completing a second book on the Texas playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote (1916-2009).  In his poetry, Haynes seeks to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without sounding any more dissonant notes than he has to.  In fiction, he works toward grasping that part of the past which made its mark on his generation.  He enjoys teaching drama, especially the Greeks, Ibsen, and Shakespeare, and he devoutly hopes for a stunning literary Renaissance in South Texas.

***

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The House of the Idiot. Poem.Sonnet. R.W.Haynes .

by

 

Dosteyoevsky

 

 

 When Dostoyevsky seemed so pessimistic,

 I smiled to think he’d viewed society

as though the false, the foolish, and the sadistic

established the patterns of human propriety,

with demons hovering over each decision,

winking and leering, clouding calculation

with appetite, with decency in derision,

annihilating honesty in negotiation.

Wondering at his marvellous naïveté,

I recognize that diabolic brood,

and ask myself how he could write all day

depicting evil with exactitude.

Age brings these recognitions, it seems,

as nightmares shove aside our foolish dreams.

 

 

 

R. W. Haynes (1951 — ), Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published sonnets and other poems in numerous journals, including Ampersand Poetry Review, Lucayos, Off the Coast, The Queen City Review, The Resurrectionist, Lucid Rhythms, Kritya, Willows Wept Review, Sixers Review, Sonnetto Poesia and Tertulia. He teaches early British literature and Shakespeare, with occasional courses on Ibsen and on Horton Foote.

 

This sonnet is pre-published with the permission of the Editor-in-chief from:Richard Vallance, editor-in-chief. The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium = Le Phénix renaissant de ses cendres : Anthologie de sonnets au début du troisième millénaire. Friesen Presse, Victoria, B.C., Canada. © 2013. approx. 240 pp. ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-4602-1700-9 Price: $28.00 Paperback: 978-1-4602-1701-6 Price: $18.00 e-Book: 978-1-4602-1702-3 Price: TBA

300 sonnets & ghazals in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese & Persian. Selected sonnets in this anthology are to be pre-published by our permission in Poetry Life & Times (UK) which has exclusive sole rights prior to the publication of the anthology itself. Readers may also contact Richard Vallance, Editor-in-Chief, at: vallance22@gmx.com for further information.

http://vallance22.hpage.com/

 ***

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