Sterling Warner

Sei poesie

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Nightshade

 

“A human being without the proper empathy or feeling is the same as an android built so as to lack it, either by design or mistake.”       

—From The Dark-haired Girl by Philip K. Dick

 

Pupils dilated, Belladonna’s lead-grey 

eyes flashed like Athena: beautiful, 

intelligent, beguiling, bewitching;

lashes fluttered & flirted 24/7

until her charisma’s allure fell prey 

to Hollywood heroin habits…

 

fiendishly darker, deeper 

than devil berry hues—

greengrocer emeralds to shiny,  

sinister, burnished blacks—irises 

as definitive as deadly nightshade,

alarm like rattling, deathbed voices.

 

Abandoning dystopian reticence 

brought her indifferent co-mingling 

to an empathetic watershed standstill,

a turning point to ponder, recalibrate,

invoke then coax dominant, finer aspirations 

over suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, 

 

or fixed dissolution “like tears in rain”  

opting instead for less formidable foes: 

fierce yet toothless, vaulting vagabonds

extending shadows along life’s fringes:

uncertainty, impatience, aggravation,

disgust, derision, depression—defiance.

 

Belladonna’s smoke-filled canyon home

hugged California Bay Laurels lodged 

amid Big Cone Douglas Fir trees, 

lapping chilly ocean water, mixing 

maritime with Mediterranean climates, 

creating fantasy fog, haunting haze,

 

sassy smog, and virtual valley veils

where loneliness found fulfillment 

on angel city’s casting couches 

stronghold of pain and purpose: illusory

glamor behind dissembling success, 

illuminating impermanent promises.   

 

#2 Remainders

 

A pencil graveyard rests in my roll top 

each occupant equal parts erasure, ferrule

& lead inside yellow wooden cylinders, 

 

packed one on top of another in bento box 

compartments crammed so full its wafer-thin 

lid barely slid closed. Squirreled away 

in my desk among liquid paper bottles—

many three decades old—Altoid mint tins,

gem clips, staples & dried up felt pens,

my popsicle-stick casket of thumb length

graphite markers remained sharpened,

impractical for people without Hobbit-sized hands;

thick rubber erasers grew hard & brittle 

 

smearing rather than lifting malleable pigment 

from the page to be replaced by timeless verse 

precision sketches, better crafted thoughts.

 

Microscopic Kaijū

For Ishirō Honda

 

Next to rotten ferns & lotus flowers, beyond brooks

where gnats sit atop recently

fallen blackberries, 

pollywogs

bullfrogs 

feast,

in

the

still

brackish

water, mix

remnants of death with

fetid mud puddles, establish 

ideal breeding pools for water striders, mosquito

larvae, dragon and caddisfly

nymphs, to dart above, 

glide below

surface

in 

short 

spurts 

like 

tiny 

wet titans— 

miniscule clones of  

Rodin, Godzilla, Ghidorah—

cinematic monsters, Japanese Sci Fi icons.

 

Naval Gnats  

 

Subliminal French horns blast

Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”

as gull gray Hueys hug the horizon’s

crimson sunset; whirlybird blades 

churn tranquil waters, increase glitter

against the sooty backdrop

of a menacing mountain range

where hazy tree tops blend

seamlessly with ragged peaks

& nefarious rain heavy miasma.

 

Light rays emerge across the welkin 

like golden ribbons venerating 

shield maiden flight. Three choppers 

linger lower & lower—closer & closer

scaring kayaking families shitless

while sparking life into a hermit’s

corpse-like carriage, inspiring him

to vault from a cedar chase lounge chair,  

rip-off his red & black logger Pendleton,

pump skeletal fists & squeal: USA! USA! 

 

Retrofitted air ambulances,

Bremerton workhorses, zip & hover 

like fjord dragonflies, shattering 

the Hood Canal’s silence; as eggbeater

wings bite into the wind, their

chuff, chuff, chuff assail heavens

like Valkyrie war cries foreshadowing 

fame through misfortune, glory 

after death—whether falling in battle 

or failing to connect with sky rescue.

 

Malvina’s Haunt

(Or “Little Boxes” Gone Wild)

 

Malvina Reynolds’ ashes once settled

on the bottom of San Francisco Bay

rose to the surface, drawn by an encroaching

presence of 21st century tract houses—

still all made out of ticky-tacky. Practically identical.

 

Once confined to the Daly City hilltops, 

like multicolored mold & mildew they had 

extended to surf, sand and shore where

Malvina rested navigating flotsam-jetsam, 

at one with barnacles and mollusks—

even those attached to the Bart Tunnel—

finding eternal peace with an undertow

inaccessible to real estate developers

until recent chips of gaudy rainbow paint

fell from salt weathered walls, drawn 

into the bay as high tides reclaim territory.

 

Rolling waves sing out a familiar mantra

while Malvina’s cremated essence sinks further

into watery depths, her protesting whirlpool 

gyrating, spinning, sucking, still questioning

“What Have They Done to the Rain?”

 

Gamboling

 

Dancing till midnight arm & palm

around a shadow’s width, I feel 

the gentle likeness of Tinker Bell’s

midriff & shoulders, locked in streetlight

shades increasing size, beguiling senses 

fingertips absorbing its peculiar essence.

 

The insubstantial apparition & I swing step

enamored by the idea our quixotic silhouettes

could meld together cavort as a solitary din

leaving wet pavement around us untouched

by calloused soles of shoeless feet: one unified

phantom spirit dissipating in darkness.

 

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.

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