Monday, 8 September 2025

Five Poems by Sterling Warner

 






The Westerfield House: A Dramatic Monologue

 

 

"Up at Fulton and Scott is a great shambling old Gothic house, a freaking decayed giant, known as  

The Russian Embassy."                       —Tom Wolfe from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) 

 


William Westerfield, don’t doddle; let’s 

revisit servant’s quarters in your Stick-Eastlake 

Victorian whose rooms that once administered 

a rites of passage, engendered rumours,  

confirmed twisted truths your own shade  

lurked between shadows without exception  

every time a wolf moon filled night skies  

and Houdini sealed himself in the tower 

trying to transmit telepathic messages  

through 1928 portals to his wife in Oakland. 

 

Ah, it’s all coming back in confectionary glory,  

Right Mr. Westerfield? Still, you're a long time gone, 

dying shortly after the Fulton house completion 

yet your meandering spirit remained fuelling tales  

future owners died in their forties allowing  

czarist “white émigrés” to purchase and transform  

the ballroom into Dark Eyes, a speakeasy nightclub,  

where patrons drank, waltzed and recited urban legends  

regarding back stairwell poisonings as well as consequences 

for desecrating a pentagram etched on dancefloor parquets. 

 

Might memories move you, Mr. WPlace your ear 

against wainscoting; let’s reimagine blue notes  

guiding jazz improvisation as they rise and echo 

off ceilings vaulted like cathedral towers as elegantly 

painted as the Sistine chapel, but cease senseless wandering 

morning, noon, and night causing bare wooden steps 

to creak and groan while wailing like forlorn spirits  

reluctant to haunt the living face to face yet unable to transition  

into another realm where hell’s prospects promised 

relief to your feeble enigma and questionable karma. 

 

Ah there’s too much to recall—so many offbeat occupants…  

don’t wander off, remain by my side; leave questions regarding 

The Family Dog and Calliope Company for another evening’s  

stroll through this ghostly haven; legend confuses dark figures  

with fancy—as do you! Abandon inquiry into the occult filmmaker  

make peace with the Church of Satan’s founder; neither he  

nor his lion club will perform witchcraft rituals in the tower.  

(Ah! But do check-out the feline’s claw marks on the doorframe!) 

Again, let’s quit discussion of the structure’s shadowy past.   

Look across the street! Alamo Square! The painted ladies park….



 

Tintinnabula  

 

(Or Wind Chime Carole) 

 

Sasquatch windchimes sway 

in the Pacific Northwest breeze  

copper tubes clang, pressed metal 

catchers, Big Foot airstream 

facsimiles sail as zephyr’s gusts   

move suspension cords, clash clappers  

against cylinders like angelic hammers  

that resonate a cornucopia of tonalities 

from baritone groans to high pitched peals. 

 

Scattered notes gleaned from “Ave Maria” 

depress and enchant, drawing tears  

from those still locked in the present  

yet causing stiff lips to grin as time whisks  

them back to fields and forests where bad  

memories fade allowing golden recollections  

to dominate lifelong reflections fortissimo 

tinkling, plinking, jingling, clinking, ringing  

picking up speed then drifting into silence.                  

 

Solar lights showcase sleek slender pipes as shade 

consumes daylight yet neither dawn nor dusk 

day or night quell their vibrant, hollow timbre 

ever at work rearranging melodic measures 

while northern winds blow south, eastern winds 

drive west, and mini tornados twist, turn, persuade  

impromptu descants harmonizing with hanging chimes  

or swinging on seven foot Shepard’s hooks anchored 

to red cedar porch planks and slate grey patio blocks.




A Nocturnal Fête 

 

for Carole 

 

Neither Gods nor Goddesses  

could elevate Carole skywards, accept  

her spirit into an afterlife of pain, pleasure, 

or existence beyond confrontation  

after she departed this world life’s weary soldier 

yet there she was—8 bottle rockets later— 

a ballistic fiesta sparking an inky welkin; 

as starbursts and peony blossoms flashed, 

rising tails shimmered, spider brocade 

patterns glittered, danced, and swirled 

scorching nightshade’s ebon countenance 

like luminous fine lace, persistently 

punctuating her heavenly blast 

with stratospheric, explosive bangs, 

sonic booms, and whistling lead atoms  

honouring Carole’s preference for spectacle  

to a passive celebration of her life ashes  

incarcerated inside a sealed silver funeral urn  

where silence mourns loss in muted darkness. 

 

 

 

Cyclic Cadences 

 

I. 

Open sepulchers  

grapevines burst buds and leaves 

Easter wings alight 

Mary Magdaline witnessed 

Dionysian rebirth. 

 

II. 

Cicadas rub wings  

world solstice declination  

zenith of summer 

bonfires blaze, wiccans dance 

solar rites augment romance. 

 

III. 

Crimson carmine leaves  

harvest altar equinox  

balance candles lit 

corn dolls weaved from last grain sheeves 

Mabon flaming pyres abound 

 

IV. 

Hibernal solstice 

shortest period of light 

Wild hunt commencement 

Concludes with light reversal 

Yuletide celebrations rule.


 

 

Starting Gun   

 

Leaving victory rolls to scrapbooks 

waves and curls to Hollywood’s finest  

 

21st century Olympic swimmers  

gather hair into tight messy buns express 

feminine vigour through nonchalant top knots 

gracing their heads like Pebbles Flintstone. 

 

Fearless, pensive, competitive, indifferent 

to commentators who extoll their skills 

 

on one hand, noting their lumberjack  

shoulders and sun starved complexions 

observing snugly fit locks under rainbow  

tinted caps that reduce drag on the other. 

 

and prevent chlorine bleach from leeching  

natural hair colour…highlights…hues. 

 

Entering off blocks, contestants take flight  

stroking water like passionate, aggressive lovers; 

as pale as earthworms, racers shoot across  

fifty-meter pools resembling Spearfish torpedoes  

 

clothed in figure-hugging lycra suits swiftly  

propelling towards a touch-pad finish targets.










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, EdgesMemento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps: Poems, “Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & FictionHalcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci (2023) and Abraxas: Poems, Gunilla’s Garden: Poetry (2025)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.

 

  

 

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