Five Poems by Sterling Warner

 

Rainforest Awakening

 

For Thom Woodruff and Neil Creighton

 

Kookaburra laughter shatters

nocturnal silence startling

sleepy night skies unfazed

by sunlight slivers piercing

ferns, orchids, and vines, warming                                                

dew laden leaves while bushman

alarm clocks fill bills, tilt necks,

allow droplets to roll down throats

adding a gurgling vibrato to their

incessant cackling and chuckling.

 

Steam rises from a billabong, melds

water dripping off sweating trees

creates misty rainforest apparitions,

hypnotically drones like a digeridoo.

 

Far below the tropical canopy

clay-covered crocodiles stir

bony scales, open jaws, yawn,

snap chops, close menacing mouths

revealing peg-shaped teeth

each conical top and bottom fang

fiendishly locked in faux smiles,

grinning at rats and redclaw crayfish

scurrying over driftwood—ritually wallowing

in muddy trenches, staying cool.

 

Mosquitos swarm like locust hordes

at dusk, attack flesh—buzz into the night

as green tree frogs crawk, flying foxes squeal,

and diminished guuguubara mirth ceases.

 

 

Carrie’s Theatre

 

Carrie knocked on tavern windows

late into the night, her knuckles

nonchalantly glanced off glass

like dragonfly wings grazing

humid August wind currents. Soft.

Sheer. Impulsive. Sylphlike imprints

left textured barfly calling cards denoting

modest impatience & compound desire—

 

longing to share nocturnal mysteries found

between lines of misery & despair.

 

Oh, Carrie shuffled down cobblestone

walkways always alone, aware sleeping

bodies seldom rose at the sound of her

gypsy fingers poking through laced gloves

tickling doorjambs during midnight hours

enrapturing evening’s watchful creatures

as awestruck by her antics as a movie

heroine brought to life in an empty cinema

 

where solitary contentment tongue-tied

vocal sots with her desolate, unabashed beauty.

 

 

Universal Arcs

 

Billions, billions, & billions

of ugly golden arches stretch out

like plastic saffron rainbows glowing,

beckoning & encircling the globe;

assimilated eyesores, they provide customers

easy access, promote fast food culture,

fuel shameless appetites with robust service,

pander to vegans & meat eaters alike.

 

Somewhere in New Mexico, inside

a flying saucer, Roswell cashiers

take orders, sling double-cooked fries,

feel superior to Swedish counterparts

labouring at the worldwide franchise

who work in Lindvallen‘s “ski-through”

unaware Nordic patrons slide home

long before their McNuggets grow cold.

 

Disparaging the Mickey D’s next to

Prague’s Museum of Communism,

& Kristiansand, Norway’s former bank, 

the Cactus State’s UFO kitchen crew

talk trash about New Zealand’s food prep

team aboard a converted prop plane,

yet dream of flipping burgers & mixing

milkshakes in basement of the Louvre.

 

The arches, the arches, those damn golden

arches, challenge good taste & throttle

culture like weaving ivy, greedy, invasive—

cause an art deco hotel to foreclose

in Melbourne, Australia, refurbishing the interior,

retaining sleek lines & kitschy shapes as McD chains

sprout up in the heart of Israel's Negev Desert

& thrive across street from Egypt’s Luxor Temple.

Hep

 

I’m hip. I’m no square. I’m alert. I’m awake. I’m aware.

…. When it was hip to be hep, I was hep.   —Dave Frishberg

 

No applause, snapping fingers

filled a void where beat poets

ignited thoughtful minds; their

verse & prose rooted in Eastern

philosophy, enhanced via call

& response, in a roomful of stoners:

mellow clouds reigned, silence held court.

 

Cigarette orbs lit candleless tables

people shuffled to restrooms, kept

time & step to rhythmic bongos

while bar tenders listened, practiced

tavern-style Zen meditation, mixed

drinks, sang scat & flirted with glassy eyes

hidden behind heroin shades.

 

Social spiritus’s Ginsberg & Waldman,

Ferlinghetti & di Prima, Weiss & McClure

stepped onto stage avoiding bright lights

ranting, raving, revelling in chaotic imagery

& cadence, smoke curling around heads

like coal black halos bringing smiles or furrowing

brows in jazzy rooms where fingers popped.

    

 

Pins & Needles Wonderland

 

Placing childhood fingers

in dimpled metal thimbles,

 

we’d dig through grandma’s wicker

sewing basket, armed against

threatening pikes and lances

where silk and cotton threads

hung from elongated tear ducts

like enchanted medieval sigils

below slender, singular eyes.

 

Grandma read us passages

from Through the Looking Glass

 

allowed our shielded digits, Spartan

spirits, and creative minds to move

from thoughts of cabbages and kings

to youthful conquests of sandbox

Jabberwockies or crystal cave

challenges, defying falling rocks

and hypothermia seeking cracks of light.

 

Sterling Warner - An award-winning author, poet, and former Evergreen Valley College English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many international 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, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poems 2019-2022, and Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci (2023)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys retirement in Washington.