November 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.
Audience Vacuum
Reading poems to an empty house
the bartender polishes dry brandy sifters
holds them to floodlights refracting
beams like a mirror reflection of Tinker Bell
darting across my stage dais, teasing me
before he offers me shot glasses filled
to the brim with Johnny Walker Black Label
insisting I chase them with Guinness on tap.
Breaking unresponsive silence, I press
forward reciting verse as invasive as
a spotted lanternfly piercing stems,
sucking sap; I clown with absent regulars
whose ghostly voices whisper in corners
red candles flickering on deserted tables—
a singular concrete lifeforce illumining
the inky tavern—besides my hollow delivery.
©2022 Sterling Warner
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL