Dosage
The physician fired my father
For insubordination.
Dad couldn’t regulate the dosage
Or himself.
He is hibernating in his room,
Eyes closed and face turned.
Suspended and silent,
Deep in thought.
The Joy of Writing
I typed my doctoral dissertation
in the driveway of our old
house in Ohio hoping for
a head start on my spring tan.
I sat in a nylon-webbed lawn chair
wearing my swim suit on a sunny
seventy degree afternoon.
My Smith-Corona electric typewriter
sat on two cases of empty Stroh’s
longneck beer bottles tethered by an
orange extension cord to an outlet in the garage.
Of course, I had a cold one
sitting beside me on the concrete
to sip between paragraphs.
The warmth made an onerous task more palatable
and drinking beer made me feel like a rebel.
My committee would have found
this scenario hateful; not befitting a scientist.
But after I graduated, I took a job at a major university
and cranked-out research for the next thirty years.
Today I plan to go outside with my laptop,
sit by the pool with a beer and write some poetry.
The elitists at prestigious poetry journals
would probably not approve.
I won’t always be writing about mythology, muses,
classic oil paintings or arcane issues in philosophy.
I won’t necessarily be structuring my verse
as a pantoum, sestina or villanelle.
But as a writer and a reader, I know
there is something to be said for enjoyment.
William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan and grew up a military brat. His first book of poetry entitled Points of Interest appeared in 2012 and a second collection of poetry and short stories Uncommon Pursuits was published in 2013. Both are available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. He has also published over seventy poems and short stories in literary journals and his work has been anthologized multiple times.
The Crossed Legged Caretaker
He’s been dead quite some time, six maybe seven years I’d say. He passed right here in this house. That was the way he wanted it. He didn’t want doctors and nurses poking away at him until there was nothing left. I don’t think he found much honor in going that way.
Years ago he built his own coffin right there in the garage. He spent three months smoothing and notching the pine until it was just so. He put so much lacquer on it that it shed water like a duck’s back. I’ll rot long before this pine box does he told me one night.
When he finished it he carried it in and stood it upended in the corner. It was one of the strangest things I do believe I’ve ever seen. That coffin standing contoured and waiting in the corner. It wasn’t exactly an omen. Then one day he brought some boards in and tacked them across. He put a few dusty volumes on the shelves, an old hickory clock, and the birch whittled wood figures he carved. It looked like any other bookcase. Why, whenever we had company they would complement him on it. He would just smile real big like and say thank you. That was the kind of man he was.
When he passed the coroner came to the house. He went out to his van to get a bag and I told him he wouldn’t be needing it. I took down the volumes, the hickory clock, and the birch whittled figures and put them on the vestibule. I knocked out the tacks and took the boards out and told the coroner to put him in the coffin and save his bag. He just stood there trying to think of something to say. That’s quite clever he finally said. Thank you I said and smiled real big.
Then he took the coffin out and ever since I have needed some place to put these volumes, and clock, and figures. Don’t you know he built one for me too. I was hoping you’d help me carry it in and tack the board across.
Print & Digital Issues
Featuring:
Issue 110, published April 2024, features works of poetry, flash fiction, short nonfiction, and visual art by Seo Jin Ahn, John M. Blodgett, Roger Camp, Teresa Hyoju Chang, Sarah Chavera Edwards, Mark Connelly, Mark Crimmins, Elias Diakolios, Kim Farrar, Steve Fay, Sam Graham, Sydney Greiner, Angie Hexum, Ken Hines, Richard Holinger, Aidan J Hong, Diane Hueter, Kathryn Jordan, Jian Kim, Jihu Kim, Josef Krebs, Linda Laderman, Nicholas Mayo, Martha Nance, Larena Nellies-Ortiz, Gloria Demasi Nixon-John, Edie Noesser, Larry Oakner, Yeobin Park, Eric Roy, Claire Scott, Cindy Sams, Vimla Sriram , Maxwell Tang, Jim Tilley, Katherine Tunning, William J Waters, Ian Wells, and Stephen Curtis Wilson.
