Five Poems by Sterling Warner

 

Sky Fires

For Carl Sagan & J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Stratosphere lights glimmer

dying amid comets & meteors

racing for eternal magnificence;

Saturn’s rings appear as ridged

as steel-hooped cage crinolines

relentlessly orbiting the planet.

 

Stargazing eyes wander, locate

ices, silicates, rocks & gasses

winking & twinkling in the heavens

like sparks flying between steel tracks

& wheels from lost stellar railroads

reduced to flickering embers at dawn.

 

Punctual time passes & spectacles dim

as we embrace falling stars, take heed

of omens, suck on helium balloons & talk

like high wire munchkins anxious to fly

on any trapeze without net, optimistic

as Carl Sagan, vibrant as Durin’s Crown.

 

Like fresh water washing filth & grime

from Moria miners’ bodies, sunbeams splash

onto alley ways, anoint dixie dumpsters, illuminate 

foreboding shadows & abandoned train stations,

reveal late hour astronomers’ grounded hiatus:

telescopes at rest—celestial secrets on hold.

 

 

Touchstone’s Crown

 

Beggars regard me a lucky totem

like Quasimodo, King of Fools,

& applaud my squirrelish behaviour,

jingling orbs hanging off dangling

sleeve tips on a cap less oval than conical;

I knock over ashtrays & tea serving sets

while limping through antique shops

pursuing gifts of universal appeal

 

to every bench braking, backyard

Esmerelda sunbathing on my block

 

or through fancy imagined climbing

redwood slat fences, legs straddling

the post cap & swaying in the wind

like Norte Dame’s cathedral bells

chimed into action, tintinnabulation

 

booming, oscillatory motions rocking

back & forth, side by side, to & fro.

 

Cheers to jesters & April 1^st superstitions

that fuel creativity, abandon caution,

release the best & worst traditional

daring that encourages carte blanche

comportment, hugging inky corners,

breeding peacemakers in haylofts,

living to love, snapping chains, replacing

numbing restraint in uninhibited motely.

 

Viviane’s Almanac

 

Viviane wrote erotic missives

on parchment paper, annotating her

text with interlinking marginalia

etched like medieval monk doodles

lost in a solitary creative process.

 

From illuminated manuscripts

to provincial real-world almanacs,

Viviane illustrated codex rubrics

with Lake Lady strokes of ink:

magenta, indigo, ebon, green.

 

Decorating white space, chronicling

imagination’s foray into the land of nod,

Viviane sketched mermaids & gargoyles,

predicted love, expected rain, listed moon phases,

tides & planet positions for farmers & lovers.

Phantom Ship Fibonacci

 

Moving along Puget Sound through

grey shadowy mist

a ghostly

vessel

parts

fog

like

dry

ice

water

vapor clouds

enveloping and

rising from the sea’s flat surface.

 

Rivalling the Fly Dutchman,

the dingy craft wanders,

hugging the

coastline,

rag

tag

deck

hands

casting

illusions

waving to total

strangers who dig for clams on shore.

Lisbeth Flashing

 

Aunts and Uncles traded hosting privileges

treated Thanksgiving, Christmas, & Easter

like passion plays sharing suffering & mirth.

 

Cousin Lisbeth wore thin terry cloth robes

like Galadriel’s gowns after brief swims at home

or compulsive showering morning, noon & night.

 

She’d allow the robe’s flat cincture to untie

intentionally to torment & titillate our innocence

whenever her parents went dancing with mine.

 

An exhibitionist, performer & immodest tease,

the girls usually looked away while the boys

blushed at shadows…imagining curves.

 

We cousins quit almost all family gatherings

to hang with classmates, whilst Lisbeth explored

sexuality like a bisexual elf in a Greenwich Village flat.

 

Alone in her house—without a captive audience—

she completely dispensed wearing clothes at all

& disrobed at high-end strip clubs professionally.

Sterling Warner 

An award-winning author, poet, and former Evergreen Valley College English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Trouvaille Review, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, and Flytraps (2022)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys retirement in Washington.