September 2020
Sterling Warner
jsterlingwarner@gmail.com
Bio Note: An author, poet, educator, my poems have appeared in many international literary magazines, journals and anthologies, including The Fib Review, The Flatbush Review, Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape, and the Atherton Review. My most recent poetry collections are Edges and Rags & Feathers; Also, my first collection of fiction, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories was published in August 2020. A Washington based author, I currently enjoy writing, turning wood, participating in “virtual” poetry readings, and fishing along the Hood Canal.

Of Lionels & Red Barons

Steam trains & biplanes vicariously
moving travelers point to point
panting locomotives passionately 
pull passenger cars, sparks flying,
jolting bodies along hard ribbons of steel tracks,
rack & pinon wheels grinding on adhesion railways,
thunder rolling en route to Texaco stations 
while wanna be Manfred von Richthofens
maneuver top heavy bi-planes high above, 
errant eyes beneath goggles fixate on mischief; 
bored, the pilots toss Coca-Cola bottles into
coal beds below à la The Gods Must be Crazy,
followed by other cockpit trash aimed at 
the scarlet caboose, any bombardier’s delight.
©2020 Sterling Warner
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF