Poetics

Gypsy Sea

Sunrise: necks stretched out like hungry clams
lurch for the Ibuprofen emperor 
whose numb fingers wave loners to café chairs—
rivet them to sticky alligator seats, bottom sides 
textured with chewing gum madness; daydreams
pull life’s canopy over sand and foam,  
seasick tides lick each empowered undertow
sheer bag luck burlesques diffident efforts, 
tête-à-tête conversations revealing 
epiphany-like promises through opaque glass.

Nightfall: along the coastline, bonfires blaze
bodies gather, mouths breathe desire, minds re-imagine; 
moving between cosmic and material worlds,  
cleaving mustard greens like an armful of roses,  
a gypsy mystic dances like a whirling dervish
toe-ring magic fractures limestone bones   
unbrushed by feet for millennia 
bangle bracelets and silver cymbals rouse
ever vigilant, sleepy-eyed centurions
stand guard over her Technicolor Roma.

Sun-up: astronomical dawn signals nocturnal closure,
dancing legs and burning feet cease
rhythmically rocking shellfish strongholds;
dense auburn moss calmly spreads its way south  
wraps a tranquil riverbed in nature’s sheath
guides an Arabesque estuary toward a
salt water fiord, lateral moraine, where
nourished sediment dwellers burrow home
high tides pull ashes, bathe shorelines 
littered with seaweed, driftwood, memories.

Grace
For G. M.

Grace leaned against parked cars 
at midnight, full crow moon rays bathing 
her body in luminescent grandeur. 
Poised. Seductive. Her touch extended
over an embankment like sprouting 
foxtail seeds resemble ballerinas that float
on the breeze and hook into dog paws 

Fragile. Elastic. Insubstantial. Like bubbles 
blown from hoops that burst unpredictably, 
Grace’s rainbow brow sought barn owl benedictions
waved goodbye to the summer solstice
welcomed the autumnal equinox—a September song
that harvested her deeply planted thoughts 
and sowed them in fields of winter wheat.

Wind passed through cedar branches, eclipsed 
Grace’s mantra of green card foreboding 
added frivolity and enhanced shorter days
and nights both waiting for December
to push back twilight’s rays—scatter them
in the upper atmosphere—brighten evening skies 
warm Dawn’s fingers on the rising sun’s heels.  

Wistful Lulamaes
For Audrey Hepburn

Tiffany windows display silver platters 
reflect morning light like vintage mirrors 
as pedestrians hide behind Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses,
dressed to the nines like Holly Golightly
pose then study its Manhattan showcase framed 
by granite walls on Fifth Avenue & 57th Street.

Disguised as stylish escorts, men and women peer
through double-pane glass, appreciate excess & exotica 
in equal measure, ponder fleeting holographic images 
of John the Baptist’s head etched sterling trays
murmuring silent prophecies, portend gentle greatness 
& Big Apple panache for life beyond Sodom’s avenging angels. 

Truman Capote’s phantom emerges from Central Park shadows 
wears a white suit & hat, moves forward like a garden snail, 
maintains a two-block buffer, his high-pitched voice mingling 
with car horns & cabbies where rainbows end announces 
breakfast availability to Broadway street singers, Soho artists, 
moon river enthusiasts, New York tourists, huckleberry friends.

Magyar Sleeves

“The Colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”
 									—Claude Debussy

Grooming themselves 
    like cats, bat pups clutch 
    onto their perch upside down, 
    loosen artistic digits  
    emerge from slumber 
    in hollow trees, cave mouths, 
    attic eves & rocky crevices.
From inverted roosts, 
    they drop into flight mode 
    as membrane covered forelimbs 
    navigate ultrasonic waves 
    & echolocation identify 
    evening canvases to paint 
    with wings like a brush & palette.
Moonlight colonies undercover 
    zig-zag through mist & gnat clouds,
    rising from depths of stone lined wells,
    leave watercolor portraits 
    during witching hours
    as children trick or treat 
    wearing bat capes & cowls.

 
 
 
 
An award-winning author, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Poetry Life and Times, 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, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.
 

 
https://www.amazon.com/Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction