Sunday, 31 December 2023

Five Poems by Sterling Warner

 




Ochre Flash



Footstones in a garden guarded by a dragon
chiselled out of Afghanistan Red Alabaster
glowed like Atlantic puffin beaks at midnight
as car lights streaked through wooden rails
shedding intermittent phantasmagoric luminesce
over rose bushes,
shrubbery, gourds,
herbs, and vegetables.

Home to black dahlias betrayed by dark shadows
and dissembling clouds that insinuated solidarity
tubers burrowed the pushed green shoots through soil
renewed life among winter pressed leaves where centaurs
boasted mental prowess, fought with brute honesty
left hoof prints
sans horseshoes
in fossilized dirt.

Urged on by circadian rhythms & pumice echoes,
the daystar’s absence signalled time for a floral respite;
spiritual Bonzi plants sleeping in the far corner
channelled the “alteration of generations”
into dreams of germination, growth, death
while cinnabar caterpillars emerged
from minute buds, lounging—
meditating—on reflective leaves.

Cars passed in early hours, bathing flowers dead and alive
with fleeting amber drift beams, as bright and warm
as the dragon sentinel inhaling, exhaling smokey breath
stirring art metal pinwheels, creaking in breezy gusts;
rusty whistles heralded dawn’s encroaching stealth
sunrays blinded nocturnal shades
flooded dew covered cabbage patches
supplanting graveyard celebrants till dusk.



Road Rage Cinema

 

Car dashboard computer screens

display maps & directions

 

inform drivers about music, singers

& song placement on playlists;

 

no need to concentrate on details

when smart cars vomit information

 

programmed tasks allow simple minds

to forget all about manual turn signals;

 

people now slip into vehicles

for conversation & solitude,

 

they welcome electronic voices to soothe

& cleanse them with kind words seldom exchanged

 

between partners. The A.I. revolution creates

a social implosion where high pitched words

 

travel through speakers, beckon blind

motorists, marshal human thoughts

 

until hands exert feeble back seat control

& incensed voices curse jammed power windows.

 


Water Bottle

 

An abandoned water bottle

litters the roadside

dripping with Gatorade residue

smeared lip gloss

Chapstick

and spit

rolling left then right, bouncing

against discarded Slurpees,

McDonald’s wrappers and beer cans

ricocheting off Altoids tins

moving like a spooked rabbit

dodging reflective traffic markers

beyond the asphalt jungle

 

as each cyclist passed

the jettisoned container

kept shifting like a tumble weed

then shot over an embankment

rocky

steep

treacherous

(any biker’s nightmare)

before landing in a gully

and drifting out to sea

where otters swatted

the plastic canteen

like a potable volleyball

bobbing on each cresting wave

till dragged by an undercurrent

jostled by a swirling vortex

battered and buried in sand.

 

 


  Hooked on Half-wit Devices

 

My

first

cousin

worshiped all

stupid inventions

from car exhaust barbeque grills

to airconditioned sneakers and stiletto umbrellas.

 

At

home

she wore

microwave

toe-warming slippers

emptied her car toilet at work

sucked down extra stout Guinness with baby bottle nipples.

 

Oh

dear

cousin

Lori, take

off  your “face glove,” toss

out those Billy Bod Teeth, ween

yourself from dumb contraptions (keep pet rocks if you must).

 


Supermarket Chariots

 

Senior citizens crawl into scooters

that move across linoleum floors

at a frightening pace as they crash

into cereal boxes, knock over cylinders

of Quaker Oats, and scrape past

plastic soda sixpacks that would have

vibrated like glass glockenspiel bars

had they been made of crystal bottles.

 

Like enraged Roman charioteers,

the octogenarian shoppers lash invisible whips,

at children searching for candy, blocking aisles

all the while envisioning themselves

as golden-age gladiators—21st century Ben Hurs

racing for the laurel garlands bequeathed

upon those who master quantum two-for-one

bargains, laying rubber enroute to cashiers.






Sterling Warner - A Washington-based author, poet, educator, and Pushcart Nominee, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in such literary magazines, journals, and anthologies as the Galway Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Journal Review, and Medusa’s Kitchen. Warner’s volumes of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps: Poems, “Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci (2023) and Abraxas: Poems (2024)as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories.  He currently writes, hosts “virtual” poetry/fiction readings, turns wood, and enjoys fishing and boating along the Hood Canal.


https://www.amazon.com/Halcyon-Days-Collected-Sterling-Warner/dp/B0CC4P5YZ4?ref_=ast_author_dp

Sterling Warner

English Professor Emeritus

Evergreen Valley College
    

Sterling Warner’s Author Website

https://www.amazon.com/author/amazon.com_sterling.warner

 


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