An award-winning author, poet, and emeritus English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Anti-Heroin Chic, The Galway Review, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Verse Virtual, and The Pike Review.. Warner’s 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, Gunilla’s Garden, Seaboard Magic: Poems (2026), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys boating and fishing in Washington.
Cressida: Seattle’s Rainbow
Cressida mastered the art
of deep faking photos
to blackmail her brothers
And misrepresent her birth
In a Portland ghetto, youth
Spent living in a VW van,
Graduating to street corners
And escort service as a teen.
Falling a rainbow arch up north
she emerged in Seattle renewed
Transferring her interest
in undressing clothed siblings
to obsessing over the owner
of Tristan’s Tattoos, allowing him
to ink her full bod, adorning
every inch of her anatomy except
for her face which she kept pristine
untouched by artifice: natural blush
reddened both cheeks, her virgin
eye brows remained unplucked
while she never painted lips
with colored wax, tinted balms,
or shiny gloss because they
flushed like Mozambique rubies:
as dark and radiant as pigeon blood.
Come to me now, Seattle’s Rainbow
allow my loving lens to photograph your
torso in earnest from the magical python
encircling you left leg and Egyptian
hieroglyphics on your both haunches
to mystic Persian symbols, mythic iconography,
and traditional henna designs everywhere else
immortalizing angry skin within Tristan’s gaze.
Remote Familiarity
In my golden years I remain distant to stay close
to others be they family, friends, colleagues, or foes
since recollections of me as a lively young man contradicts
my present grave visage and penchant for peace
quiet, and solitude rather than partying all night,
leading the pack, dancing during dawn’s early hours,
moving in time with the crows of twin roosters…
Yes, I’m the very uncle both nieces and nephews cherished.
They fought about who got to sit next to me during holiday meals;
I was the fun guy who defied decorum and related stories that unveiled
the wayward sibling exploits of their moms, dads, and myself
when we marshalled our mischief to fulfill youthful curiosities
from tagging Traynham’s Music Store’s parking lot with spray paint
observing reactions to our graffiti while secretly hiding behind cars
to walking through brooding storm drains forbidden by elders,
splashing fetid water…chased by transients as we’d make our escape.
Adult nieces and nephews still beg and expect me to repeat
lurid legends of their parent’s naughty exploits like tales
read to toddlers—no words left out or changed—rubber stamped
with irreverence, puckish intent, and dated hyperbole;
trapped, however, by closure and my current distant demeanor,
I miss out on daily nuances and fresh nightly mayhem
of emerging rituals I might have witnessed or have been
a welcomed participant—favorite uncle transformed.
Window Seat
Cerulean parcels of land—
Pea-green, burnt sienna, yellow—
Featuring symmetrical, almost linear borders
Appear out the window, Some fertile, others fallow,
All falling under the silver bird’s
Metallic wings,
Throaty turbine thunder, Fleeting shadow.
Southwest Flight 6699
Seems to hydroplane
Far above grassy wetlands Where tulle fog
radiates, Gathers into heavy mist Under
cumulous clouds just Begging for a
lightning bolt, A corona discharge, or
Kaleidoscope refraction.
Glancing out a window seat portal
Through wispy sylph-like clouds—
Pallid, translucent, practically transparent—
River ribbons interlock below,
Look like watery shoelaces
Unstrung at 10,000 feet,
A navigating gauntlet at
Sea level during
Equinoctial
Spring.
Sid & Nancy Reviewed
For Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen
As the pitter-patter raindrops glance off magnolia leaves
Sid perfumed Nancy’s hair with lavender sprays
picked before dawn while dew nestled in spikes
long time they held each other in mutual dreamscapes
where time’s static tick curtails elusive minutes
shadows take rest under weeping willow bows
trade winds relax in low pressure limestone caverns
hamsters climb aboard miniature race wheels 24//7
bumble bees buzz like a bump-and-grind bass player
and children pogo jump through heather like punk rockers;
here Nancy took leave of riding horses, traded her
topless dancing gig for intimacy, kept self-destructive urges
and pacts at bay while depression gnawed at their bare heels,
hazy nights flashed by, rumors traveled on jet streams—
from Chrissy Hynes’s green card marital scandal
to drug induced words cutting egos and piecing abdomens
as sharp as knives; still Johnny Rotten’s guilty outbursts
did little to tame two tortured souls released from life
to phantom zones without junkies allowing Sid & Nancy
to spiral like Grendel’s dame and her lonely boy ambassador,
both disregarding bollocks with Spartan indifference.
The Galway Review 