Sterling Warner

Body Artiste & Studio Vogue 1970. Poems By Sterling Warner

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Body Artiste

 
Brandy called herself an empty easel
ready to strip down naked and take on
primary colors, a blank canvass eager
to display artistic genius & mutable
good taste as her flesh took on hues
any rainbow might envy & satisfied
a young boy’s locker room fantasy.

Daybreak till twilight, artists illustrated
Brandy’s skin; she posed for photos,
sent them into cyberspace & reveled
in notoriety that left her wanting, longing
for lustrous fulfillment as someone’s
magnum opus, satisfaction in spirit
only complete when stroked by a brush.

 
Studio Vogue 1970

 
Vinyl record albums stacked facedown

            like semi-glossy square decks of cards

feebly served as trendy apartment bookends

            supporting a motley assortment

of leather bound & paperback texts.

 

A discarded telephone wire spool, my

            hip coffee table, that looked like

a Brobdingnag sewing bobbin, showcased

            artbooks ranging from Frida Kahlo’s symbolism

& Michelangelo’s sculptures to Dali’s surrealism.

 

Lovers and I watched our youthful bodies

            roll with an undulating waterbed tide

through a full-length plastic mirror

            nailed like a crucifix above us

before we sank to the liquid mattress’s center.

.

Days and nights we once seemed to own

            fell victim to infrequency’s impact

on intimate moments: the paucity

            of cheap thrills, my dated studio décor,

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, Shot Glass 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. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington. Author/Sterling-Warner
 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

  

Vainglorious Emblems. A Poem by Sterling Warner

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Wheellock pistols and civil war sabers,
more than just a family’s coat-of-arms,
decorate knotty pine cabin walls
deep in the Everglades pestilent swamp
where alligators rest on banks covered
in muck, ready to strike out at inattentive
wildlife or rush back into the wetlands
hidden below the quagmire except for eyes
that poke above water like periscopes viewing all.
 
The cabin floor, unswept for a dozen years, sported
multicolored moss & mildew corner to corner;
rat turds crunch as feet walk across wooden floors,
figures appear outside through wax paper windows,
winds whisper between cracks & increase tonality
as wings rustle and mud-swallows flitter in & out
rafter holes safe from predators, build nests, tend chicks—
cultivate life amid passé remnants of fireplace heraldry
while crossed blades just rust & pirate pistols don’t fire.
 
 

 
 
Sterling Warner: An author, poet, educator, and Pushcart Award nominee, Sterling Warner’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Flatbush Review, Literary Yard, The Fib Review, “Sparks of Calliope: A Journal of Poetic Observations, “Scarlett Leaf Review,” “Poetry Life & Times,” and The Atherton Review. Warner has published six collections of poetry: Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Rags and Feathers, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, and Serpent’s Tooth: Poems (2021). Also, Warner’s first collection of fiction, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories, launched in August 2020: https://www.amazon.com/Serpents-Tooth-Poems-Sterling-Warner
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Olympic National Park: Nature’s Drama. A Poem by Sterling Warner

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Drinking ice tea in the

Bogachiel Rain Forest,

relaxing in retirement,

observing the Salmon

run along the Skokomish,

bald & golden eagles soar

high above, wait for harbor

seals to capture fresh fish,

climb aboard wooden rafts,

& steal the slippery bright

pink prey for themselves or

possibly feed hungry eaglets.

 

Large driftwood logs

float down the river’s throat,

anchoring themselves

along the Hood Canal’s

warm salt water shoreline;

mosquitoes breed abundantly

while skittish bullfrogs

stridently soldier vociferous

appetites in concrete storm

drains—conduits emptying

into the sound—shielding them

from sharp-eyed predators

scouring sand & stone for food.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Sterling Warner’s Brief Biography
 
 
An author, poet, educator, Pushcart nominee, Sterling Warner’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Life and Times Artvilla.com, The Flatbush Review, Literary Yard, The Fib Review, Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape and The Atherton Review. Warner has published five collections of poetry: Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Rags and Feathers, Edges, and Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux. Also, in August 2020, he launched, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories, his first collection of fiction.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals and Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Cyber Madonna. A Poem by Sterling Warner

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Strategically stressed denim garnished by
random sweatshop tailored holes
adorn wafer thin sheaths that
bond practicality and beauty,
encase the streetwise goddess’s
thighs—accentuate long legs,
enhance airy, sylph-like movements, while
her satin skin peeks through weathered threads
rises above, basks through the frayed fabric’s weave,
when early morning’s warming rays touch
her strapless back, kiss soft shoulders,
bathe them in deep, moist, honey breaths.
 
The cyber Madonna fingers fine pearls,
plucked from the buxom ocean’s bosom,
like meditation beads,
gives every cultured orb an identity, blesses and
eternalizes each mollusk’s enterprise; the
world begs to be her cybernetic oyster, so
she invites men and women to
text her, tweet her, love her; horny, she
longs for enduring chat room romances…
as she types, her heart hangs over parted lips
like an engorged keystones above
Aphrodite’s passionate arches.
 
Environmentally friendly lifelines
hold their shape then creep like
molasses along a steamy plain:
dignified, resolute, as determined as
the sheer force of gravity,
she bends her elbows, folds her arms,
camouflages self-consciousness solemnity
as loving as a preying mantis’s gaze
whose frozen posture like an invisible cloak
becomes one with surroundings—
cautious as a vigilant caretaker
guarding the tomb of an unsung savior.
 
All want to lie in the virgin’s lap
while she cradles tired heads in the
deep valley of her skirt, connecting
without speaking, a million miles
from another’s thoughts, yet
united in a common denominator:
transcendental intimacy—calculable regret; the
Madonna stokes each lover’s hair that
settles across her body as if petting
an exquisite ermine or sable stole, while
every race, color, gender, creed, lifestyle
coax another Immaculate Conception or ascension.
 
 

 
Sterling Warner’s Brief Biography
 
An author, poet, educator, Sterling Warner’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Flatbush Review, Literary Yard, The Fib Review, “Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape and The Atherton Review. Warner has published five collections of poetry: Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Rags and Feathers, Edges, and Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux.
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)