Spontaneity: Chasing Crazy

Dancing the tango down main street
grabbing complete stranger’s hands
          leading partners chest-to-chest, alternating
upper thigh & hips proactively, like a sailor
          on leave, steppin’ out, swaying like Dean Martin
taking small steps three sheets to the wind.

Skipping smooth, flat stones across shallow koi ponds,
          ripples roll like miniature arching waves
crashing into rooted water plants along the shoreline;
          sitting for hours at railway junctions watching trains
waiting for the streamlined Denver Zephyr, observing only
          two level louvered stock cars transporting pigs & cattle.

Gamboling though downpours without umbrella,
          kicking colorful oil rings resting on puddles,
ducking inside an all-night FM radio station
          at the edge of town, announcing call letters before
introducing an uninterrupted hour of Pink Floyd classics
          returning to deserted sidewalks, owning them till dawn.

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A Washington-based author, poet, educator, and Push Cart Nominee, Sterling Warner's works have appeared in such literary magazines, journals, and anthologies as The Ekphrastic Review, Danse Macabre, Scarlet Leaf Review, The Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine, The Fib Review, and the Shot Glass Journal. Warner's volumes of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent's Tooth: Poems, and Flytraps (2022)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, turns wood, participates in "virtual" poetry readings, and enjoys life.