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.
***
***
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.
***