the night - the eyes - the sea
in the night
the eyes see
the sea of stars
in the night
the waves water
your pure soul
in the night
the tears fall
from high in the sky
in the ocean of feelings
turned into silver mysteries
___________________________________________
clarity
when I arrived
I didn't see you...
you were hiding yourself beyond an eon
when I came back
I saw you in my dream...
you were hiding yourself beyond a moment
when I left
I felt like you've been here...
since the dawn of time
_________________________________________
dreaming
I see in my dream
I fall asleep on a cloud
I see in my dream
I fly to a star
I see in my dream
I breathe like the moon
I see in my dream
I live like the sun
I see in my dream
I get dizzy in the ether
up there, very high
I see in my dream
you haven't gone away
I know in my dream
you are still here
as in any dream of mine
________________________________________
conditional
if only I could
I would lift you up to heaven
if only I could
I would walk you in the ether
if only I could
I'd keep you away from nostalgia
if only I could
I'd put you to sleep on a cloud
if only I could
I would baptize you on a star
if only I could
I would clone your love
if only I could
I would give you a galaxy
if only I could
I would dedicate an astro-poem to you
_____________________________________________
mirror
pure frozen water
silver surface
water-lilies floating on water
reality reincarnated
close distance
imagined reflection
concealed knowledge
spiral depth
faded concentration
radiant symmetry
inverted imagination
apparition - invention?
___________________________________________
OK. OK. This here flows the muspascat-taculan room used for musing up only.
There you go here you are pull that up and sit click down as;
This flows get inside now please yes Mommy yes the muspascat-taculan room used for musing only.
This the muspascat-taculan room used for only. Canada’s the root source of most rotary conversations knuckle-knuckle insert size medium plath cementeriannatipn here and return in ten minutes
This muspascat-taculan room get inside now please dinner’s ready get inside yes Mommy yes used only.
This room click only. (and once in hair-up yes bones oh yes doctor Smith oh yes and oh yes yes yes yes doctor Smith doctor Smith yes yes yes go by that time it’s not hard set up immediately call for heavily armed back up head’s great, great uncle *what’s that spell what’s that spell* why Gregor that spells there’s a Gregor in the house eh get inside now please dinner’s ready why the hell’s heavens s’ you taking o long want a whipping do you must be looking for a whipping get inside yes Mommy yes eh eh e there a—ooooooooo GREGOR IN THE HOUSE A ONCEANDFORALLIAN GREGOR IN THE HOUSE sure it hurts what you think sure it hurts, but we got to do it anyway okay all-rat yer-ass sure sure sure it’s I got to do it anyway you happy now get inside now please dinner’s ready why the hell’s heavens s’ you taking o long want a whipping do you must be looking for a whipping get inside yes Mommy yes Sneezie, it’s not we got to BackWhang! BackWhang! do it it’s just ME got to do it not we but ME ME only and not we but but I can’t see the difference’s a rat anypipe, since we go in they’ll do nothing just watch me do want a whipping a good beating then a whipping do you must be looking for a whipping get inside yes Mommy yes everything Yes I built three new warehouses BackWhang! on time and in budget no no liar liar it was US did it all you just sat-fat, and watched hey hey Yes I built ten thousand approximately little Black Bakelite boxes on time and in budget | buy me a set of size large purplish trousers | no no liar liar it was US did it all you just sat-fat, and watched hey hey we keep the whippings and the beatings in there BackWhang! but be sure to set them down slowly on our universally credited silver-starred pallets Yes I launched thirteen huge hulls at my shipyard on time and in budget click click click no no liar liar it was US did it all using such devices keeps them fresh keeps them holy you just sat-fat, and watched hey hey no no yes yes no no its maybe maybe no no its yes yes yes yes no no no apportion these back there properly please we forgot we forgot but better late than never
tight slacks or tight trousers big sofa or davenport rocker-recliner please we’re here for hats not hose (particuluplarre)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there we’re sure that’s enough if there’r spares do not trouble to return to inventory for NO its not yes yes no maybe pay two dollars please ; .. ,, I want to keep them fresh and holy Mommy just like you do I also want to too
1 2 3 4 I pock-mark do not get the gas you need to get the gas I don’t the seals have been broken they can’t be reinventoried so just donate just d. gas you usually do so go get it if we need it that is if you get it when we don’t need it an accident may push out some stem and BLAST’s what may happen so—avoid that at all costs. why is it as I look at you I can actually see your whole brain stem ding!
before eating that one there needs a series of evenly spaced good heavy beatings
h ‘”]{+ GET GAS getting gas’s below me oh yah that there’s way up-top you and looks like they’re getting gas ha ha ha when mother calls and you don’t come in expect a good slap in the face (the bare minimum) Barry swivel! swivel! like this Daddy? “ ., yes like that {behold the McIntyres’ brand new Wok} swivel swivel Wow! Look! Are those fighter planes? do {of which they are so proud} the gauges say we’re full UP yet do day Daddy what do the gauges say ar ne beeo enough in, DADDY? is that you Barry? Is that really, really you?
are we in deep enough now
swivel-pivot
I hope so
no you don’t son hope doesn’t count as a strategy round-about here and environs
Nancy!
What?
Graddieo-o-oooookslaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Meestah Bo-Peepula’s windows (yah?) grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr couch glandular couches meest’s glandular couches the name of the {which will in their service serve up all future dishes wonderfully hot} conditions who’s condition why your condition of course you’re the one strapped to the machine not I see I am here and you are there and taken together we may be presumed so | Up there! Look up there! They’re so loud! Must be fighter planes! | but that does not mean it is I with the condition by my God and by my word I had such a terrible condition as you, why—I’d immediately drop everything and go get my head examined eh eh eh eh they say quite often to the deviating in some sometimes every very minor way, crap g’eon shit go get your head examinedDOC we think here quite securely you need your head examined, yes, no indifferently (write this down skoal) there {I got a date w’ a bunny out back o’ the laundromat} yours appears to be still on (write a checkmark under agency name there skoal {Christ, Ross, a checkmark cannot be an agency name reconsider *} while the patient goes on strapped in patiently waiting having faith in DoC Pantunnio’s pock-mark sheepskin “hung on their wall” saying in script this that and ten others this is indeed the son of God Yup, yup; yup yup yup yup yup yupyupyu[pock-mark pock-mark pock-mark pock pyu[yu[ in that paragraph there honey that’s there go read it |split| tgilasr-trinckular-r-r-r-ianne JESUS Christ, my back itches God DAMN God-d-d-DAMN there’s a tree by this here you may rub it ? this here what this here ? Is your name Lillian James? If so, then, I’ve that there this here ? oh oh those this here’s over there wait no I will go I will go I will go o’er there I will get one * say wise in the cemetery by the Louthurralianne’s churchery I will go get one see? See those there? I swear to God it was one of these graves right round here like a record baby round round right round + oh and so I need that large of a surgery Doc? how far out around when one says right round here how right round are we talking? “?. are we talking just one next grave all around ‘vry direction but {excuse me my friend here and I would each like a few more “injections” of that please and/or thi(a)nk you} why the hell’s such a simple condition required that huge of a surgery Doc doublecheck that out please Doc uh oh please this one here ah I {yes almost just almost but this grave here’s where ‘e count needs to start from +oh yah and okay just shut up and stand corrected surgery Doc?shitsurgery Doc? that’s the problem with you and this pack-o-chaps with you, you can’t Navarronned ‘lly just (the guns just the guns) shut the hell up and simply stand corrected o no no n no no now 998&&&$ yes it does matter which grave gets dug in the center ‘cause the anomaly’s there’s that years back in a visit the marker was a quietly unusual wrought iron custom-made cross full of curlicues. See? See? And all painted black in a suit of glossy Rustoleum you know you can picture the kind of black painted wrought iron curlicues what when you rub your finger down them you detect tiny bumps tits and otherwisely defectivities all over the wrought iron, and there was so, so much more to see and to know about it what an interesting grave marker what an interesting on’ BUT it is gone now.
What? My God, no. That is terrible.
Yes, terrible, And, where it is now is, a mystery.
Sure is yes, sure is.
I really want to see it but it seems no longer there.
What a pity.
No longer there.
A pity.
Not there.
Pitiful.
Yes. BackWhang!
Yes.
Yes pitiful Party! Oh, *## simply stand simply stand simply
Calliope’s Windfall Cadralor
I. Autumn Amity
Nonpolar effect
hydrophobic leaves
aggregate water droplets
may hydrogen bonds join
us in molecule cages.
II. Goslings
Noontime disruption
thundershowers high above
goose and gander honk
once we danced in spring rains
mimicked nature’s celebrants.
III. Hades’ Decan
Sizzling zodiac
liquid smoke spareribs
third March decan caution
we share Pisces confidence
tap psychic propensities.
IV. Worm Moon in Libra
Loving being loved
full moon eclipse in Libra
balanced relationships
I recall picnics, plucking
fresh flowers, crushing on girls.
V. Cathedral
Gargoyle waterspouts
downpours fill granite gutters
cleanse Notre-Dame steps
may our ile de la cité
stroll recapture memories.
Matching Tattoos
Vera woke early today but not alone
last night she’d hammered her way
bar to bar, allowing men & women
to ply her with drinks, twerk & grind
across low lit dancefloors before taking
her leave & exploring other haunts.
I should know; she picked me up
& we spent the night carousing—
a bevy of mixologists alleged
We hooked up on midnight’s backside
when starshine casts cosmic freckles
upon damp pavement & sunrise heralds
fill ebon streets with song; I remember lifting
her inside a taxi, squinting open bloodshot eyes
simultaneously at dawn; confused yet unruffled.
Vera showered in her slip, dressed in an Uber
sipped java as we drove club to club retracing after hour
footsteps to likely saloons, 24-hour cafés & her parked car.
We discovered her sedan at the Ink Masters Tats
chrome hubcaps stripped, tires intact, radio blaring;
she dropped me off out General Electric, my faux
employer, listened to graveyard peacocks cry & scold
like babies from Oakhill Cemetery across the street as we
exchanged phone numbers neither of us intended to dial.
Arc de Triomphe Pilgrims
High school voyagers,
premarital couples,
& collage dropouts backpack
through Normandy fields,
nibble on exotic cheese
sample cuisine, contemplating
a side trip to the Aquitaine
in search of Limousin beef,
duck foie gras, rich, red Bordeaux
wine & a chance to explore
historical landscapes
from the French Alps
to the Pyrenees always atop
Charlemagne’s shoulders
each day celebrated
like St. Crispin’s feast,
Agincourt groupies,
rambling towards Paris
trekking like bicyclists
across the Champs-Élysées.
Wistful Entreaties
Take me back to cherry tree orchards blossoming
throughout Santa Clara Valley in the 1960’s,
a time inspired before birthing Silicon Valley
replaced fertile fields and fruit bearing groves with glass,
steel, cement, tar, high technology, and computer chips.
Free me from yesteryear’s idealized social diaspora
perceived through a senior citizen’s vantage point;
mindful of lessons learned, responsibility accepted,
swing wide youthful curiosity, advancement’s doorway,
acclaim achievements true, own up to virtue questionable.
Help me ignore shadows, recalling bad decisions,
regretting dump yard expeditions, adding rubbish to landfill—
future housing track foundations—major source
of toxins, leachate and greenhouse gases, tolerating
Eichler’s radiant heating, San Jose’s mounting smog.
Let me recall small budget pleasures frequenting
drive-in movie theaters dotting the valley’s
agricultural perimeter, where Steven’s Creek Blvd
gave rancher’s a thoroughfare and the Winchester
Mystery House marked the edge of town.
Grant me childhood bliss hiking amid Alum Rock hills,
searching for treasure filled caves—Joaquin Murrieta’s haunts—
or exploring abandoned shafts inside the condemned
New Almaden quicksilver mines, oblivious
to dangerous rotting timbers and poisonous cinnabar ore.
Permit me quaint mind expansion…just limit my high to Geritol
enhancement; shorten day long treks through San Jose
to mailbox journeys, and venerate fingertip entertainment
as a respectable alternative to clubbing it, theatre premiers,
lowriding kicks, or Mount Umunhum trysts in parked cars.
“O’zapft is!”
(“It is tapped!”)
Löwenbräu flows, Oktoberfest
beer steins raise, village voices shout, “Proust!”
celebrant couples dress in Bavarian garb
from Lederhosen to dirndls, flap arms
like chickens, and twist ageless bodies
to brass bands playing oom-pah-pah music
drifting beer tent to beer tent sampling
warm pretzels dipped in mustard,
savoring smoked brätwurst, sauerkraut,
and käsespätzle, sharing gingerbread hearts,
inhaling apple strudel, basking in camaraderie,
concluding with a horserace recollecting—
honoring—Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess
Theresa of Saxony-Hildburghausen nuptials.
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 Lothlórien Poetry Journal, EkphrasticReview, Synchronized Chaos, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry/fiction include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems (2024), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys retirement in Washington.
