STERLING WARNER - POEMS

A writer, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s poetry and fiction have appeared in dozens of international literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, including In the Grove, the Flatbush Review, Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape, American Mustard, Chaffey Review, Leaf by Leaf, The Atherton Review, Metamorphoses, and The Scarlet Leaf Review. Warner also has published four collections of poetry: Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, and Rags and Feathers—as well as a chapbook: Memento Mori Redux. Warner currently lives and writes in Union, WA and is working on a collection of fiction. 

Notre Dame 2019
—Remembering the Notre Dame Fire

​Circular rose windows refract light,
Frame intricate stain glass patterns, 
People, pageants and passion plays; 
Webbed, multiple compartments border,
Link, reinforce elegant arched ribs, as 
Flying buttresses support the main vault. 

8,000 organ pipes silently scream an alarm;
Fiercely, flickering flames engulf the Medieval
Catholic Cathedral, vulnerable sanctuary,
Spire, oak frame, and lead roof collapse while    
Solemn Gargoyle rainspouts glare through smoke, 
Powerless to squelch the architectural inferno.
   
Victor Hugo acclaimed Notre Dame’s a “symphony in stone;” 
The regal, resilient, religious fortress defiantly endured when
French Revolutionaries desecrated, defaced and destroyed 
Holy icons, replacing idolatry with “Liberty’s Altar,” 
The Cult of Reason’s depraved, licentious aesthetic,   
Doomed to devote Christian imagery rising from history’s ashes.

The Gothic inspired, spiritual domicile—a popular  
Poor people’s book—depicted vivid sculptures illustrating 
Biblical tales for illiterate parishioners—witnessed 
Joan of Arc canonized, saw Napoleon crowned Emperor. Notre Dame’s   
scorched glass windows subsist, its 13th century charred façade stands, 
Quasimodo’s bell towers remain intact, the Crown of Thornes sits safely. 

Vanguard Reverse
—Boulder Creek Recollection

Crawling along the manzanita bush pathway
Stiff, twisting branches tearing, torturing
Blisters shaped like Scandinavian ruins,
My back, bloody and bleached by the sun
As I slither into a shaded solace, greeted by
Grove upon grove of grand redwood trees 
Traversing the hillside, bypassing burls, moving
Down the forest’s face, leading to a road where
Row after row of iridescent ear abalone 
Their convex armor housing inner layers of
Mother-of pearl  reflecting and refracting tinted sunrays,
Dull exterior shells rounded with three spirals 
Clutch the silicate sandstone grade where lonely winds 
Whisper, ghostly voices emerge, and the soothing sound of
Crashing waves along with drifting tides seem to surge 
Back and forth, softly then loudly, dusk through dawn.



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Breakwater: Santa Cruz
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Beleaguered, 
Mother Nature
Silently sits before
Opening languid lungs,
Confessing an 
Empty heart to 
All who will listen,
Fulfilling her unbridled 
Appetite for life and love--
Tinged with penitent remorse
 
Words passing through  
Thick, pouty lips even
Angelina Jolie would envy
Sing “on and on, on and on,”
Under brilliant celestial bodies
That appear as if they’d been 
Drawn and quartered 
Every half hour, each
Twinkle turning into itself, fast
Becoming pressed crystal, then
Simply cosmic dust that 
Falls between moonlit, 
Granite crags where 
Hermit crabs scramble over
Summer’s barnacle blankets.

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Lion & Dragon Dancers
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                                                                                                 Chinese 
                                                                                  New Year,
                                                                         Traditional
                                                     celebration,
       Lion dancers blink eyes 
                                                    As large as beach balls
                                                                           Expose furry jaws,
                                                                                    Accept Red Envelopes and
                                                                                                      Various other gifts, 
                                                                                                      Make way for the Dragon 
                                                                                       Dancers—a dozen plus 
                                                                              Legs shaking
                                                        Lung’s yellow 
                                                 Bold back arching
                                    Acrobatic arms raising 
                                                Majestically
                                                         Lifting a torso on poles;
                                                                               Dragon head
                                                                                          Animated cranium nodding, 
      Mouth opening,
                                                                                           Speaking in cryptic voices 
                                                                                 While skilled acrobats
                                                           Twist and turn its long
                                                  Segmented, serpentine body,
                                     Adorned in spark throwing fireworks,
                                                 Tail keeping time to strong,
                                                           Steady drum beats,
                                                                          Encircling the pillar with
                                                                                Angular, rhythmic movements,
                                                                                          Cavorting, Gamboling, Capering
                                                                               Mixing  Cloud Cave, Whirlpool, and
                                                                          Threading the Money dance patterns,
                                                            Projecting dignity, fertility, and power,
                                                   Leaving me a spectator rather than a
                                      Participant as my sweetheart teases
                                                       The dragon seeking wisdom by 
                                                               Chasing a pearl—symbolic
                                                                             Ball on a stick--
                                                                                    Zig-zagging 
                                                                                               Out of emotion,
                                                                                                        Out of reach,
                                                                                                                 Out of love,        
                                                                                                                          Out of luck.

Channeling Culverts
​

Tangled mass of diverse, commingling manes 
Liberated from a baroque maze of

Plumbing traps, elbow joints, cleanout tees,
Cross fittings, isolation valves, and wye fittings;

Curly locks blend with auburn tresses, silver fox sideburns,
Blonde shocks, crimson whiskers, chestnut pubic hairs

Indiscriminate drains caress protein follicles one and all,
Oblivious to texture, length, color, creed, or DNA;

They cluster, cling, and covet furry wet clots like
Scaly Scandinavian dragons clutch treasure hordes

Until plunged into an ebon abyss of tap water and sludge--
Reclamation waterways where even sable hairs lose distinction.


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