WILLIAM OGDEN HAYNES - POEMS

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published seven collections of poetry (Points of Interest, Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings, Going South and Contemplations) and one book of short stories (Youthful Indiscretions) all available on Amazon.com.  Approximately 200 of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com

The Birds
​

​I awaken to the shrill shriek of scolding blackbirds in my front yard. There are hundreds, stopping by for rest and food, ugly birds, feathered, yet without the colorful elegance
 
of old black women in their plumed church hats. Because they are the color of crows,
some people mistakenly call this group a murder of blackbirds, but the correct terms
 
are cloud, cluster, or merle. And when they fly in the early morning, they sometimes
combine with other species like grackles, starlings and brown-headed cowbirds,
 
creating a swarming, swirling, undulating black cloud of aerial ballet called a
murmuration. But the vocabulary used to describe this avian invasion is never
 
the first thing that crosses my mind. As hundreds of birds suddenly populate my
lawn like so many scattered, animated commas, I always feel a sense of foreboding.
 
I’m filled with an uneasy dread, trepidation approaching the jagged edge of terror,
just like I felt long ago, sitting in the darkness of a Michigan movie theater in 1963.
 

Revelation at Mile Marker One Twenty-Five
​

​On the day of the accident, the police took her to survey the scene.
A backpack, a yawning laptop computer, a box of Kleenex, a brown
 
porkpie hat and a sea of twisted car parts, items once together, scattered
like pieces of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on the shoulder. She could barely
 
look inside the car at the broken glass, bloody airbag and her son’s shattered
cell phone. But afterward, she remained busy with funeral arrangements
 
and gatherings, leaning into life like a soldier marching against a stiff wind.
She constructed a roadside memorial at the accident scene, so her son would
 
not be forgotten. She made a promise never to let the display deteriorate,
like so many commemorations on the roadside, gone wrong from neglect.
 
She had always wondered why people made memorials that were so beautiful,
and then allowed them to decline into twisted trash, like the accidents they
 
represented. So, every two weeks, she would return to the site to replace
the faded bouquets, deflated balloons, and clean the road grime from
 
the cheap, white plastic cross. But after a year, the day came when she broke
her promise. She realized that, for strangers speeding by on the interstate,
 
her display could never really be a monument to her son. No one would ever
stop to read his name or the date of his accident, so like those before her, she
 
stopped tending to the memorial. Now, all that’s left is a sad, neglected, anonymous
display that tells passersby that, unless they’re careful, they may die in an accident
 
the world may soon forget. And she’s okay with that, because she now realizes
that a roadside memorial, at best, is just a public service announcement,
 
to remind drivers who pass this way, of their own mortality. A message that
motorists can absorb in seconds through a car window at seventy miles an hour.
 
 
 

Requiem for a General’s Limb
​

​General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna is probably best known for prevailing
at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. But, only two years later, the French Navy invaded
 
Veracruz, Mexico and the general made the short ride down to the port from his home
wearing just his nightshirt, astride a large black horse. When the French admiral saw
 
a mounted man yelling and waving his sword, he fired a ship’s cannon. The cannon shot
landed next to Santa Ana’s horse, killing the animal and wounding the general.
 
After Santa Ana’s lower leg was amputated, he took the limb back to his Hacienda
on the outskirts of Veracruz, and buried it on the grounds. Four years later, when
 
he was elected president of Mexico, he exhumed the leg, put it in a large crystal
vase and transported it to Mexico City in an ornate coach escorted by a contingent
 
of soldiers. The leg was given a state funeral and burial beneath an elaborate monument
with full military honors. There were cannon salvos, parades, and speeches by members
 
of the cabinet and congress. But in 1844 public opinion turned against Santa Anna,
and rioters destroyed the monument, dug up the leg, and dragged it through the city
 
by a rope chanting “Death to the Cripple.” Santa Ana had a number of prosthetic legs
fitted over the years. Ironically, two of his legs were captured in the Mexican-American
 
War of 1847 by the 4th Illinois Infantry. A cork leg is displayed in a military museum
in Springfield. A wooden peg leg, captured again by the 4th Illinois Infantry, was allegedly
 
used for a short time by the soldiers as a baseball bat, and is now housed in Decatur, Illinois. Multiple requests from the Mexican government for the return of the artificial legs were refused.
 
Santa Ana died in 1876 and was buried in a glass coffin with full military honors in Mexico
City. Just prior to his death, when his political popularity faded, Santa Ana lived in exile in
 
Cuba, the United States and Caribbean islands. He traveled extensively in North America, although, it is still a matter of dispute as to whether he ever set foot in the state of Illinois. 

The Last Valentine
​

​He relaxes in the quiet of his car in the Walmart parking lot. And when he gets
up the nerve, he’ll open the door to the cacophonous clatter of late shoppers
in search of last minute valentine greetings. But for now, he watches the Boy
Scout, the grandmother, the fat man with his hat on backwards and the pregnant
 
woman herding two children, all headed for the automatic doors. They’re on their
way to buy cards, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, candy hearts with messages,
red helium balloons, and flowers. Later, he joins the crowd in the greeting
card section, elbowing close to the rack to buy one of the few remaining cards.
 
He can reach only a few, and for the rest, he reads stale sentiments over the
shoulders of other shoppers. He has a desperate desire to find just the right
words, words wet with love and lust, wonderful words for his wife that tell
her how he feels, how they feel. But finally, he realizes that these valentine
 
cards written by strangers, could never contain what he wants to say, and
would not capture the wonder of her, of them. So, he buys a card, but ends up
dropping it in the trash at the store exit. No greeting card describes him arriving
home and putting away the groceries, then finding her in the laundry room,
 
kneeling in front of the dryer, singing a song they used to dance to years before.
No card portrays her flirty smile, as she folds his jeans, warm as fresh baked bread.
Nowhere is it written down, that she stands up, humming that tune again, and puts
her arms around his neck, as they slow-dance down the hall toward the bedroom.
 
 

​Shelf Life of Concert Tickets in a Pandemic
 
            A man is only as old as the woman he feels.  Groucho Marx

​Before the corona virus, I spent a thousand dollars on two
tickets to the Rolling Stones Unfiltered Tour concert in Atlanta.
 
They were very good seats near the stage. Today, I learned
that the tour was postponed indefinitely until after the pandemic.
 
Of course, the concert wasn’t cancelled, or else they would
have to refund my money, it was just postponed. And now,
 
as the money for these tickets incubates on my Visa card
I begin to wonder how much longer I should expect these
 
old geezers to live. Will it be enough time to squeeze in another
tour? Are the Stones somehow inoculated against catching
 
the virus? For seventy-six years, Mick has been particularly
resilient, having been married and divorced once and going
 
through a series of girlfriends like Jerry Hall, Carla Bruni,
Angelina Jolie, Brigitte Bardot, and Tina Turner. His latest
 
partner Melanie, is a ballerina, more than forty years his junior,
who gave birth to his eighth child in 2016. So I’m hoping
 
that given his youthful demeanor, he will survive long enough
for me to use my tickets. I know Keith Richards will make it. 
 
I saw a photo on Facebook where three of the Stones were wearing
surgical masks, while Keith just stood there with a big smile.