R. W. Haynes: A Heavenly Dream

Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/d6kSvT2xZQo) 14.07.2022.

Slap That Mosquito, Phaedrus, My Friend

Yeah, we split the atom long ago

Down there in good old Statenville,

With a .22 rifle and some time to kill

We learned everything we needed to know.

The bullfrogs would bellow the whole truth at night,

And the yellow flies’ malice harmonized the theme,

While old books drew forth a heavenly dream,

And Plato pranced in the piney-woods light.

Yeah, that Alapaha River cleans itself out

Every ten feet, just as history

Does the same in mind, irrevocably,

The future sunlit, the past in shady doubt.

Here’s the flatwoods wisdom. Here’s the goods

Straight from the Olympus of the flatwoods.

About the Author: R. W. Haynes is Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, where he teaches early British literature and Shakespeare. His recent publications include studies of playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote. In 2016, Haynes received the SCMLA Poetry prize at the Dallas conference of the South Central Modern Language Association. His poetry collections Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press) appeared in the summer of 2019, and another collection titled Heidegger Looks at the Moon came out in November 2021 from Finishing Line.

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