Wednesday 26 May 2021

Five Poems by R. W. Haynes

 




Mrs. Woolf Visits Canta Ranas--Watches El Pájaro Loco


 

Truth comes in various intensities

Of dilution, and even in this avian display

Of ludicrous rudeness, a woman must say

How here one sees surreptitious fantasies,

Although this laugh of horrid victory

Reminds me a bit of someone I used to know

Who laughed that way some fifteen years ago

Till my aversion finally set us free.

We all carve our presence as we go,

Sometimes with vengeful comicality,

But how do we deal with this sad paucity

Of living trees here in Laredo?

In the beginning, was there this word

Pecked out so loudly by this rude bird?

 

 


Flower Child with Crocodile Briefcase Heartens a Beloved but Lying Friend

 

You can’t negotiate the Crucifixion, dear,

It’s like space or distance, like light,

But better, always living, always here

Blessing all Creation day and night.

 

Remember when we went to fish that lake

In Arlington, and I got mad and took a knife

And somehow hitchhiked home before daybreak?

You thought I hoped to throw away my life,

But foolish things sometimes do make us wise

And bring us to the truth with opened eyes.

 

Here you have it, proof of all I say,

In this breathing body, this reverent thing

Where love glows gently, and gently I pray

That your dissonant spirit will sing

In the transforming light of perpetual sunrise.

 


A Snap of the Fingers

 

Volumes of persuasion, a rain frog concealed

In a peeling house in a desert town where you

Circulate through bad decisions revealed

By bitter experience, baggage that got through

 

Customs—the second-best camera never fails—

Brought home by lethargy’s lightly flapping sails,

 

And Ruth makes watermelon punch so damned red

Fire-trucks blush as they gasp and moan

And wake Laredo’s roosters from the dead

Sleep hovering heavily and lingering on,

 

And little lizards scuttle forth from sunburnt bricks

To tell you silently all they have learned

From their ancestors of acrobatic tricks.

But no, Mr. Gloom de Doom, you’ve been burned,

 

And when that all-embracing Easter Bunny died,

All of your treasured hopes and dreams were fried.

 

 

Big K Lands among the Capitalists

 

“Khrushchev’s Due at Idlewild”*

 

“Prove it before these varlets here, thou honorable man, prove it!” –Constable Elbow

 

No one arrested this cardiac fire until

An accident smothered it with swill.

So since then, one just lets it roll

Halfway oblivious to control.

 

Give way to decency, stand aside for pain,

Put the flags in the trash can. Keep praying for rain.

Nice work with that dagger, O Queen of the Nile,

I’ll put down my banjo and die with a smile,

Though, like Bugs Bunny, I’ll rise in awhile.

 

Hammer on the table with the Soviet shoe,

And I’ll tell the microphones the party is through.

Your eyes still manage to cause train wrecks,

But my card is gone from your index.

It’s three-chord apathy that buys the right

To wait here at this red green light.

 

*from the theme song of “Car 54, Where Are You?”

 


 

Carpet Page for Vernacular Watercraft

 

I only drink water just before I drown,

Grinned the old man with the too-bright eyes.

Never put out a fire before it dies

Or go to a funeral with a sober clown.

 

Here I have it easy; my only sorrow

Is that my dogs will wonder where I went

And miss the morning treats their angels sent

When I kick the sun tomorrow.

 

Be careful with love, always respect

The lady of Cyprus, whose deadly might

Will wrap you up in a knot so tight

You'll never get to sleep at night,

Eaten internally for bitter neglect.

 

Give her honour; pass on one side

If possible, give a discreet shake

Of your bells, for love's sweet sake,

And never assume her power has died.

 

I only drink water just before I drown,

Grinned the old man with the too-bright eyes.

Never put out a fire before it dies

Or go to a funeral with a sober clown.




R. W. Haynes has taught Early English literature and Shakespeare for many years at a university in South Texas. His verse has appeared in various journals, and two collections of his work appeared in 2019.  His focus as scholar has been on Tudor dialogue and the American playwright Horton Foote.


 

 

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