June 2022
Bio Note: A Washington based author, poet, and educator, my poems and stories have appeared in many international literary magazines, journals and anthologies such as the Eunioa Review, Verse-Virtual, and Anti-Heroin Chic. My most recent poetry/fiction collections include Serpent’s Tooth: Poems, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories, and Flytraps (2022). Currently, I enjoy writing, turning wood, participating in “virtual” poetry readings, and fishing along the Hood Canal.
DC Comics Rule
People stuffed the Tully Road Junkyard—
a pauper’s paradise where gulls held court
over landfill—with old spice racks, broken tables,
plastic coo-coo clocks, styrofoam plates, wicker
chairs, and basement bargain sales items nobody
wanted; the stench of rotten trash chemicals,
and pigeon shit piggybacked on wind gusts
then hung in the air a mile down the road,
but what the nose could not abide, my eyes
found glorious. An old cardboard box
reeking of gasoline leaned against bald tires,
yet beyond the pungent odor lay two-hundred
DC comic books from Detective to Batman,
Action to Superman, Wonder Woman
to Flash and the Green Lantern—tossed
away without ceremony, collecting mildew
languishing in the sunlight—close to igniting
from ultra-violet rays—so I rescued them
all, my first paperback library that scented
my bedroom like spilt oil at an Exon station.
Port de Bras
Emerging from a forest grave, Giselle twirls on a pedestal
reaching for the heavens, hands pressed together
like a church steeple; palms flatten as if holding celestial
powers above, her sheer glass body naked, pure,
on pointe…round derrière tightening as she tilts her
head backwards, rests it on an imaginary air pillow
filtering “Swan Lake,” “Firebird” & “Sleeping Beauty”
through museum wall speakers, separating Tchaikovsky,
Adam & Stravinsky ballet scores from Wilis voices
condemning betrayal, urging vengeance, forsaking
mercy to those responsible for Giselle’s woodland crypt.
Crystal lips murmur, express pleas, sing psalms,
await a final release; frozen in time, light refracts
through Giselle’s translucent torso, fragility
defined by crackles rooted in a shattered heart;
love’s power inspires imaginations to envision footwork—
recall fluid movement on legs long & agile
when the prima ballerina would spellbound nobles
& commoners in crowded theaters, lifting eternity’s curse
on romantics, evading drop-dead exhaustion—dancing
until sunrise; now, her ice sculpted shroud anticipates death
freed of her current performance. Petrified. Stiff. Cold.
©2022 Sterling Warner
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