1]

The Lady Scholar’s Private Dissertation

His sonnets study character, and then

They pose conundrums, relish a tiny joke,

Or rise from parlous jungles, equivocal smoke

From a hermit’s cookfire far removed from men.

Not that it matters. My own smoke arises

To blind me, sending signals of distress,

Unrecognized, whatever I confess

To the staring sun—no profit, no surprises.

I turn a page; here lies no remedy

For ignorance or absence, no real thrill

Repays my plunder here, or ever will.

The words engage an alien sympathy.

Yet I persist, I scan and puzzle and pry

To penetrate evasions, find the lie

2]

The Unconfused Tarantula, I Mean, Tarantella

As burgerish Torvald smites the ivory keys

With spousal diligence, his manly face

A study in patient tolerance, dormant lust,

And bankerish inflexibility,

Who whirls to please? With driven feet,

Approximating Circe, ha, muchacho!

Driving fear’s theatricality

Into an irresistible swirl of hope,

A panting, passionate acceleration

Of its own deadly evaporation.

3]

A Little Ham for the Kaiser

“I shook with dread lest the wolves might eat Napoleon.”

–Stark Young

“Crisis is my middle name.”

–Leonard Barkan

Let us tolerate certain tyrants, for years

Of helplessness cultivate our fears

And grind our groveling faces in routines

Which pacify these giants looming above

And make us skilled deliverers of love

And calculating little schemers of scenes.

As clever kids, we fled the bully’s wrath,

Minnows in shallows; here we brightly flee

Deep-water monsters roving randomly,

And dodge in terror from the dangerous path.

Arriving now to our destined state

Of dignity, we look about to see

Whose egos must be favored diligently,

For this is the service we negotiate.

Yet in such servitude grows desire

To see the autocrat’s complacency

Give way to recognition, a peripety

Hurling vain pettiness into dreadful fire,

With pain from what one now contemplates

Partly purged as some vast wheel rotates.

*

R. W. Haynes is a Professor of English at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas. His poetry has been widely published, and his main academic interest is currently the late American playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote.

All work is the rightful property of the author and is distributed with their permission.