Whale Killer
For Bella t19
Apex predator: A fish-eating "resident,"
mammal-munching "transient" trapped.
Immobilized, the largest dolphin’s
black/white forehead melon bobbed
spouted, sonar signals sent
though echolocation navigating
their way through oyster beds
stacked like Scandinavian burial
mounds, a symphony deep sea signals
encouraged the practically beached Orca
to bide its time, wait for tides to rise
and currents drag, so natural “logging”
released it from the shellfish fetters
of sandbar shackles as its large tail
ascended and giant flukes crashed
down on increasing swells, emitting
nightmare cries from the Hood Canal
throughout Puget Sound—finally freed.
Bella’s self-rescue pathos supercharged its
optimistic salt water search for an absent Pod.
A Vagabond Sailor’s Notion
Clark County’s grown zero
in its ever increasing housing crisis,
the Vancouver Jefferson Street
homeless encampment swells
and subsides featuring regular
inhabits and transients who hike
from sanctioned city shelters to street
corners sharing poverty nuggets,
food pantry scraps, meager sanitation.
winter fingers chill
paper cups, wax wrapper swirl,
people waste away
Birthdays came and went sans celebration
till one vagrant sailor set a new president
pulling irregular length candles
from the depths of his jacket’s checkered
pockets, placed them in the gummy sloop
atop the Masonite breakfast bars
along the wall, lit all eight wicks, and watched
the twist pink wax towers flick and drip
leaving only wax puddles around the base.
soup kitchen magic
shoeless folks peaked though windows
smiling, applauding
Lustrum Sidekick
Grandpa confided in me at five years of age
as if I were one of his Tavern homies—men
who shared intimate commission merchant tales,
some frank but most exaggerated, bragged
about their newest cars, and detailed methods
of weathering the heat, making grain broker
bargains from Livermore to Watsonville,
Sonoma, to Gilroy, Sacramento to Fresno.
He secretly told me how he once made Nana
sorely jealous when—while deep in his cups—
he confessed she’d been a rebound from his
first love, Clara Bow, the original cinema
“it girl,” and he deservedly owned a furies wrath.
“Being open and honest has it limits,” he’d laugh.
Though strictly naïve in ways of the flesh,
knowledge of his first crush and its affect
upon Nana, informed my decision to disregard
the request from my kindergarten teacher,
a native of Turlock and Grandpa’s former neighbor,
to send him her warm regards! (Why would I, a sane
grandson, tempt Nana’s green-eyed monster within?)
Every Saturday an hour past dawn, Gramps plucked me
from my family home around 8:00 PM to accompany
him for a morning of golf and post-nine hole conversations…,
too small to caddie a bag full of drivers, wedges, woods
and irons, he’d hand me a club as we stepped off a cart;
whenever they would slam a gutty ball, he and his
friends took wagers; the man whose swing propelled
the ball farthest from the green purchased a round of drinks
for all. As Grandpa nursed each Romos Gin Fizz, his buddies
took turns setting me up with rocking Roy Rodgers mocktails
a syrupy sweet virgin drink mixed especially for boys.
Due home by noon, we seldom left the clubhouse
until 2:00 PM…. Driving his black Cadillac sedan
down backroads, his unstable steering thrilled me
with the sensual stimulation of riding a wooden roller coaster!
We’d roll down our windows, let breeze blow our hair,
play his car radio and sing-along with the tunes. Unsteady.
Pissed. We both stumbled into Nana’s kitchen, weaved our way
to the table, and reeked unapologetically from our post-golf debauchery.
Sots we were! Grandpa’s Beefeater Gin perpetuated his
stupor while the carbonated sugary mocktails I’d imbibed
Sepia Salvation
Carole’s curtailed life lives upon my bedside
table within a noir portrait where shadows
bewitch eyesight, her high cheeks contour
and begin to twitch come midnight
a time when once we would have our way
with one another in showers of verbal
exaltation or physical ambience
arms around arms, legs interlocked,
mouths touching then humming hymns
appropriate to our sacred ceremonies
where we alone determined boundaries
encouraged experimentation, nurtured
dreams of a future unhindered by doubts,
fears, or reservations. Yet where Carole’s
gone, I cannot follow; what she now knows
I cannot comprehend. During summer
nights or wintry storms, her static, bold,
endearing, ever fragile burnt sienna photo
comforts a memory—reflects a frozen moment—
which in itself will fade when I die alone.
Remembering Taylor’s: 1971
We arrived at Tayor’s, young, hippie, and free
threw off fiber clothes, strolled around naked indoors
proudly wore our own skin under golden sunrays,
accepted one another’s imperfections, gifted strangers
with a song, a dance, and a smile as Kauai’s
North Shore community grew with surfers,
transients, and hipsters sharing a twisted ideal
where mainland dreamers romanticized
the inhabitants as 20th century resident Utopians
who victoriously freed themselves of society’s rules
living spiritual lives enhanced thought acid,
mushrooms, and marijuana, neglecting to mention
the free love mythos attracted rift-raft, disease, filth
and discomfort from opportunists and vagrants
who came and went breeding violence, disregarding all
that had seemed pure, beautiful, and unspoiled.
Sterling Warner’s Author Website
https://www.amazon.com/author/amazon.com_sterling.warner
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