{"id":8243,"date":"2023-03-22T21:58:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T21:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=8243"},"modified":"2023-03-22T22:09:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T22:09:11","slug":"the-rain-wet-rats-more-poems-from-rw-haynes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/the-rain-wet-rats-more-poems-from-rw-haynes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rain-Wet Rats. More Poems from RW.Haynes"},"content":{"rendered":"
1]<\/strong>\r\nThe Rain-Wet Rats\r\n \r\nShe bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized\r\nHer fitful thoughts circling constantly\r\nBack to what gets lost, what set free, \r\nGently startled, but not at all surprised.\r\nThe cold front rattles in with peevish rain\r\nConcealed by darkness in the morning chill\r\nBut nudging at the mind as hostile specters will,\r\nCold drops rattling like a fatal chain.\r\n \r\nCan she be easy regulating the fates\r\nOf two dozen dirty peasants with staring eyes\r\nAnd rusty pitchforks, furious at lies,\r\nShrieking in the rain outside her gates?\r\n \r\nIs risk or safety the best choice to make?\r\nThe rain outside keeps rattling like a snake.\r\n \r\nThe rafters of civilization broke that day,\r\nAnd all the rain-wet rats nimbly raced\r\nAway like greyhounds, all order displaced,\r\nAnd she ducked aside to hide out of the way.\r\nThunder crashed, as it were, and she\r\nSmiled secretly and thought of my face\r\nAping consternation ludicrously.\r\n \r\n2]<\/strong>\r\nSymbolist Gunslinger Purges His Vocabulary\r\n \r\nLovely ladies, decked with smiles and flowers,\r\nDissolve all war and ugliness generously,\r\nGently repudiating suspicion, hostility,\r\nDisarming all the cowboys\u2019 macho powers.\r\nLet sunshine warm where desert heat once dried.\r\nLet kindness soothe the pain of outraged minds\r\nAnd cool the excessive heat that burns and blinds.\r\nLet understanding leave rough men satisfied.\r\nFor this is a magic, a witchcraft you yield,\r\nMedea, Medusa, Miranda, Antigone,\r\nCriseyde, Duessa, at times ferociously,\r\nAnd Judith, and the fair witch I once met\r\nUpon the meads, whose ring I wear within\r\nMy blood-curdled heart, and will wear when\r\nChariots descend to collect my fatal debt.\r\nLovely ladies, let the world spin away\r\nIts grief, let conflict fire our blessed sunlight,\r\nLet the right simplicity be ours today,\r\nAnd the right words bless our witless dreams tonight.\r\n \r\n3]<\/strong>\r\nJukebox Catullus Hums and Strums\r\n \r\nI can\u2019t stop playing Banquo\u2019s ghost,\r\nAnd blood runs everywhere each time I twitch,\r\nAnd somewhere my corpse is bleeding in a ditch,\r\nAnd you\u2019re still indifferent to who loves you most\r\nDespite this commitment, this dramatic dedication\r\nHere on these boards where happy endings hide\r\nFrom murdered noblemen with broken hearts inside\r\nAnd no luck in erotic conversation.\r\nMay I venture an aside, though I should leave the stage?\r\nLet no ghost be dishonored, or his staring eyes\r\nWill plunder your heart in midnight surprise.\r\nEnough.  The mad Queen calms the murderer\u2019s rage.\r\nThe curtain never falls for the players in this trade;\r\nWe wait to spring the traps the poet made.\r\n \r\n4]<\/strong>\r\nThe Right Reply for Second-Hand Fear\r\n\u201cNow time\u2019s Andromeda on this rock rude\u2026\u201d\r\n\t\t\t--Hopkins\r\n \r\nA delicate matter prevented her revenge:\r\nMadame Alving was, at that time, at least,\r\n(Delicious pause) Andromeda waiting for the beast,\r\nLong-legged bait a gate to unhinge,\r\nA passage of a champion of the stage,\r\nSic semper tyrannis the cry of the day,\r\nCooing doves flapping wings to fly away,\r\nAnd the old monster\u2019s dilapidated rage,\r\nBursts forth though in need of upholstery,\r\nRoaring his regrettably wheezy roar\r\nTo remind us what monsters are onstage for,\r\nAnd everyone fake-quakes, all but she,\r\nFor she smiles somewhat palely with that fire in her eyes,\r\nAnd waves a hand defensively without fear,\r\nFor she knows who and what is scary here\r\nAnd what is God\u2019s truth and what the Devil\u2019s lies.\r\nThat steady fire grows, its intensity stays,\r\nHowever much your maudlin monster weighs.<\/pre>\n
 
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\n 
\nR. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University<\/strong>, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright\/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author\u2019s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote\u2019s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light<\/em> (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape<\/em> (Finishing Line Press). <\/p>\n
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1] The Rain-Wet Rats   She bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized Her fitful thoughts circling constantly Back to what gets lost, what set free, Gently startled, but not at all surprised. The cold front rattles in with peevish rain Concealed by darkness in the morning chill But nudging at the mind as hostile … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[780,572,983,984,808,796,366,754,401,226,584],"tags":[18,136,3,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8245,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8243\/revisions\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}