tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27211690255925845432024-03-18T08:57:11.407-05:00Author Jay SturnerThe Official WebsiteJay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-38232727814940717972024-03-10T14:15:00.003-05:002024-03-10T14:15:54.846-05:00Horror Prose Poem Published in Spectral Realms<div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOoAwQ7xMWP4H6MRXvfauXF-qO1n0EunGYVUNGb7cDx9moiEbzCUlPUBfD5XXIpo8NsY_huvLc9Irpc_cGOIpG3YnNLXlb21Pna9_K1v-SlODImEyGV3NSkmUt01GPUH1TFQIdl10ZactgDJDue6thlK_-ChQ9paujJROZT4DI72tvrkNjVZQZE_5Sahnm/s2651/0310241339-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2651" data-original-width="1801" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOoAwQ7xMWP4H6MRXvfauXF-qO1n0EunGYVUNGb7cDx9moiEbzCUlPUBfD5XXIpo8NsY_huvLc9Irpc_cGOIpG3YnNLXlb21Pna9_K1v-SlODImEyGV3NSkmUt01GPUH1TFQIdl10ZactgDJDue6thlK_-ChQ9paujJROZT4DI72tvrkNjVZQZE_5Sahnm/w217-h320/0310241339-1.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>The new issue of <i>Spectral Realms</i> is available now and includes my horror prose poem "The Great and Final Feast." To purchase, click <a href="https://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/spectral-realms/spectral-realms-no.-20" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">From the website:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Hippocampus Press is proud to commemorate ten years of our acclaimed journal of weird poetry, </span><i style="font-family: times;">Spectral Realms</i><span style="font-family: times;">, with the publication of the twentieth issue.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">As before, it contains a diverse array of poetry by today's leading versifiers in the realm of horror and the supernatural—John Shirley, Scott J. Couturier, Frank Coffman, Manuel Pérez-Campos, Ngo Binh Anh Khoa, Leigh Blackmore, Ann K. Schwader, and a host of others. Maxwell I. Gold and Jay Sturner contribute provocative prose poems, while a cadre of poets pen tributes to Dylan Thomas (Carl E. Reed's "Echoing Dylan Thomas"), Robert W. Chambers (David J. Kopaska-Merkel’s "A Vision of Carcosa"), Emily Brontë Michael Potts's "After Heathcliff Digs Up Cathy"), and the imperishable Shakespeare (Kyla Lee Ward's "Malvolio's Revenge").</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Among the classic reprints are poems by the Scottish writer William Sharp and the Weird Tales poet Mary C. Shaw. The issue concludes with a detailed index of poets and poem titles to issues 11–20.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;">* * *</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Image: Contributor copy of <i>Spectral Realms</i> No. 20, Hippocampus Press, Winter 2024. Cover art by Pinckney Marcius-Simons. Design by Dan Sauer.</span></div></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-6981941620874740092024-03-08T14:32:00.000-06:002024-03-08T14:32:15.857-06:00A Danger of Outer Space Hide 'n' Seek (website exclusive)<div><span style="font-family: times;">Young alien</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">slips behind an asteroid</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">unknowingly enters</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">a tear in the space-time continuum.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">It returns</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">a split-second later—</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">friends</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">nowhere to be found;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">planet</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">long, long dead.</span></div> Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-6829225189319464892024-02-25T09:40:00.002-06:002024-02-25T12:44:47.958-06:00Current Theory of the Otherworldly Head (old unfinished story; abandoned)<div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: times;">I am barricaded inside my office, having locked out a maniacal specter which even now paces outside my door, barking at me in some incomprehensible language. It is waiting for me to surrender to its agenda. I will write of this agenda shortly.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What I must do first on this brisk autumn day is document my role in a series of tragic and gruesome events of which many will find questionable, if not wholly unbelievable. I do this to establish a timeline for the investigation that is sure to follow. Despite my fretful state-of-mind, I will do my best to transcribe the events as they unfolded.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The following is a letter which I expect to be found within the hour, finished or not, sensible or otherwise:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">To Whom It May Concern:</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My name is Kieran O’Hara, assistant to Dr. John J. Smith, Herbarium Systematist and Curator of Vascular Plants at the Field Museum. Please take a moment to prepare yourself for my words, in whatever fashion suffices, for you must be willing to believe what I am about to tell you. It is fantastic, to be sure. Yet I promise you, it is all true.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>First, let it be known that I have tried with all my strength to convince the entity to return to the dark realm from which it must surely have come; to forget about its insatiable, yet perhaps justified need to take me. I have tried to convince it that I have nothing to offer – no alliance, no worship, no gratitude to speak of. It has put me in irreconcilable discord with the will of my mind.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So I write to you – whomever at present is reading this, be it police officer, investigator, psychoanalyst, or mother of the deceased – to relay my version of today’s events, and in doing so perhaps exorcise the despair which circulates through every extension of my soul. Soon I must face that which longs to snatch me from this world, currently of which lingers in the dark crawlspace of the near future. Perhaps I will be allowed a last moment of sanity before the shadows of judgment stretch over me.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I will forgo the minor details of the morning, before the air cracked open and released the entity, only to say that it was a typical morning in which all tasks were conducted without incident. For the sake of clarity, let me bore you a bit with the details of my position: [this section was not written]</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now on to the timeline: I retired to my office shortly before noon when there came a peculiar noise from the herbarium proper. I dropped my cup of tea and grabbed at my head in the suddenness of it, for all is silent in a herbarium without visitors.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The sound heard was that of dry leaves in a stormy wind. It lasted all of three seconds. At first I shrugged it off, as peculiar sounds sometimes find their way out of the herbarium’s vents and disproportionate spaces. But the sound returned, this time for a longer duration, and with a visual – a flash, really – of something speeding past my office door. Although passing quickly, it seemed, from my point of view, to go by in slow motion, as if signaling detection by presenting some lingering essence of itself. It was a ghostly green head, and it seemed to peer at me with glowing eyes.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This disembodied head traveled at an elevation of about two meters, seemingly where a man’s head would be had he a body. But there was no body. Instead, there was merely an “appendage” beneath the head, a slight form composed of trailing vines and blowing leaves. And the whole of it was animated – falling leaves and all – as if alive, or of existing in some natural landscape beyond the walls and juxtaposed onto a thin space in the reality before me. It bore a tortured countenance unspeakable, as of a man plagued by nightmarish anger in a waking state of consciousness. At the time I was not convinced of its reality, and simply regarded it as a byproduct of my fatigue, having recently worked long, lonely hours in the herbarium.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Soon, however, and perhaps unfortunately, I had to discount my imagination, for what happened next was not a subliminal flash or daydream brought about by fatigue.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>I must admit trepidation here, for the entity yet unexplained thrashes outside my office. It pounds against the door relentlessly, has knocked down my barricade of stacked furniture and boxes numerous times. I can hear its thick grunts, its fits and unintelligible shouts, interspersed with the sounds of blowing leaves and crackling flames. It frays my nerves, but I must put down these words, profess my innocence. It is important that I reveal to you the true criminal in today’s course of tragic events.</i></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To continue–</i></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After leaving my office to investigate the green-tinted apparition, a sudden stream of heath-scented air began to blow through my hair. Never mind that the windows were closed – there is no heath in the Chicago region, let alone within such an urban area as this. I thought for a moment about what I was experiencing, scratched my head and even neared a fit of laughter as one preposterous thought passed along to the next. But all preoccupation was halted by a fitful noise in the processing room, the sound of something trying to release itself from a cardboard box. The fragrant breeze seemed to come from the room, and I shouted: “Who is that?”</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No reply, just an ever-increasing din of activity. Then a flash across the doorway. Again, the impression of a ghostly disembodied head, now orange and red like autumn leaves; or, more so it seemed, angry with an essence of fire.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My first instinct was to go for help, but a strange force began pulling me in the direction of the room. The disembodied head reappeared in the doorway, its color changing from red to brown and back to green again; a display of nature’s many hues. I fell into its piercing gaze, its eyes projecting a hypnotic, phantasmagoric dance of blooming flowers, popping leaf buds, twisting tree limbs. It seemed to suggest I come in.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My fear somehow distilled and my curiosity piqued, I entered the processing room and looked about, momentarily taking my eyes off the glowing head. Behind it were its many so-called servants – a procession of them, crawling out of a tipped over box on the countertop. All were plants of one sort or another, pulling themselves across the counter with their leaves, pushing forward with their roots. Tree and shrub clippings pushed and rolled themselves along with the collective effort of their branchlets. The text written across the box read “Botanical Specimens for Scientific Study, County Sligo, Republic of Ireland.”</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here I should mention some facts which lend themselves to my current theory of the otherworldly head: a set of vascular plants, in addition to a few moss, fungi and lichen species, was recently collected by Dr. Smith in the environs of my birthplace, a remote region of Ireland in western County Sligo, just inland of the Atlantic. Dr. Smith believed these plants were new to the botanical world, in several genera no less, and in need of immediate preservation. After close scrutiny I firmly but respectfully suggested that the plants were mere anomalies or variants of common bogland species. After all, who better acquainted with the flora of my homeland than I? As was often the case, my opinion was disregarded.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In addition, after examining Smith’s notes, I plainly saw that he did not follow proper etiquette while conducting his work, often taking samples at old ruins, burial sites, and known fairy mounds. Despite my diligent warnings, I might add. All for the sake of science, he told me – that was reason enough.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At any rate, these were the very specimens which now crawled from the box in an animated fashion. I know you will be thinking this impossible, that I must have been hallucinating, or that I concocted a fantastical story to avoid prison on grounds of insanity.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At first I considered it all a dream, but you must understand: my childhood was spent exploring the ancient ruins and stone walls of my countryside, in a landscape of rock, damp spaces, and creatures unseen. I always sensed them, even at a very early age. I knew they watched my every move as I played among the stones in the heath. Now and then I would turn quick enough to see one – a sheerie, merrow, leprechaun or a selkie – a split second before they morphed into their disguise of a sheep or jackdaw.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You’ll do well to remember that Irish mythology and folklore tells of many a strange and beautiful creature. I would be a liar if I did not admit falling under the spell of those entities which were now before me in the herbarium processing room, for they reminded me of the <i>sidhe</i> of my youth, their presence of which I cannot explain or express in terms of science. Whether or not you believe me is of no concern. I experienced full well the day’s events, which continue as follows.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hypnotized and in awe of the head, I was unable to do anything but watch as the jerky, determined movements of a vine gripped the handle of the upright drying apparatus and twisted it. The door opened and out fell the flattened, dried body parts of a human being, all contained within several plant presses and segregated by layers of absorption paper and cardboard. Over the collective body escaped a grey cloud of blood-and-flesh-scented smoke that lingered in the air and clung to the ceiling like a small colony of bats. I fell forward and struck the ground in a spray of sick as the living plants leapt and maneuvered their way around the presses, pulling at and loosening the straps that were tightened around the presses.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At this point I ran toward the exit, but an unseen force slammed the door shut. The head, now enraged, hovered directly in front of me and turned bright red, crackling and giving off an aroma of burning leaves. Nearby, the plants pulled apart the straps of the presses, loosening the boards and letting spill out the flattened body parts, by now which I recognized as Dr. Smith by way of the watch still attached to his flattened arm.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After a collective effort the plants soon had Smith stacked in neat little piles along the processing table. A saw, dripping with blood, lay in the sink, and this I figured to be their method of disassembly. Now, no piece of the man measured more than twelve inches long, eight inches wide, or two inches thick. He had been cut into dozens of specimens of standard herbarium size.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I turned back to the head. It now hovered above an open drawer – the location of the archival specimen paper. The head rotated and looked at me, it eyes blazing. I understood what it was telling me to do.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I will not speak of what came next. Suffice it to say that Dr. Smith can be found in a scientifically proper place among the collection: in the cabinet bearing the newly affixed tag <i>Homo sapiens</i>.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I realize the disturbing nature of this act, but please bear with me as I conclude.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After finishing my assigned task I fell into a chair, overcome by despair. The head swirled and flitted about me like a butterfly, its complexion pulsating with the majestic greens of Ireland. I must have pleased it.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After a few moments the head, along with its “minions,” returned to the box in a strong inhalation of heath-scented air. The lid slapped shut and the box righted itself. It was as if nothing had ever happened.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What followed next was a failed attempt by me to destroy the box with fire. This merely enraged the head. Bursting from the box, it chased me to my office where I slammed the door seconds before it could catch me.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And those are the events as I remember them, those that have led to my current situation. Do not judge too harshly my role in the aforementioned events. What I did, I was forced to do, was obligated to do. You must understand that there is no innocent man here. Not by rule of man, gods, or the worlds between us. Violations have occurred, and examples have been made of mortal men not by any law of my own. You see, there are ancient things; beautiful, ugly, and unknowable things. There are entities born of love and hate, of emotions beyond the scope of mans’ senses. And with them come rules of conduct, of co-existence and of boundaries. They have tolerated much more than you will ever know. The time has come when they will tolerate no more.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I must now end my letter, knowing very well that the legitimacy and sanity of my discourse will forever be in question. This I cannot change. But I am grateful to have given our side of the story, to have shared with you the existence and purpose of the otherworldly head. I hope you come to realize and understand its truth. For the sake of mortal men, you must.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Sincerely,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Kieran O’Hara</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Herbarium Manager</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I fold the letter once and place it upon my desk. I am now ready to enter the next chapter of my existence.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Uniformed men break through the door, weapons drawn. They close in like wild-eyed wee folk and ancient curses manifest in flesh. And that god-like head spills in among them, blinding yet beautiful in its brilliance, an essence of all that is earthly and strong, sacred and trusted.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It will show me its secrets, let me witness the deaths of entities forgotten, of deities never known by man.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The head stares at me through the advancement, kinetically jangling my eyeballs in their sockets. All goes red. I foam at the mouth, charge ahead with scissors. Gunfire breaks my bones, shatters the windows. The head grins with leafy mouth, timeless eyes.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Men are standing over my body, their necks wriggling like maggots. I cough blood. Laugh in the heath-scented air.</span></span></div></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-5863447017841831762024-02-25T09:34:00.007-06:002024-02-25T12:18:23.780-06:00Chapel of the Pitch Black Forest (old unfinished story; abandoned)<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">I fell in love with Berella in a Parisian café, the nearby Eiffel Tower shrouded in gray and dripping with rain. She was attractive in the unconventional sense, with bulbous, milky blue eyes set wide apart and a hirsute, ebony face of the most hypnotic countenance. Exotic in every aspect of the word, her beauty surpassed that of any woman or wild thing I had ever seen. Her dialect, too, was as mysterious and hypnotic as the tone of her voice, unfamiliar despite my numerous travels outside England, to regions of the Carpathian Mountains even, where she claimed roots. In esoteric knowledge, beauty, and intelligence she was unparalleled, and these traits, among others, sealed the fate of my heart, which, despite having previously only desired adventure and material wealth, now longed for her attention, and her attention only.<br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That evening, after the storm had passed, in a park bordered and threaded with wet roses, I bent to one knee and asked Berella for her hand in marriage: me, clad in my finest English suit, holding up a gold ring sporting a sapphire, she radiant in the illumination of the low, ruddy moon, the silk of her long black dress capturing fallen leaves and the reflections of moonlit roses. The moment she raised her dark, elongated arms to wipe away tears with an emphatic “yes,” I knew that all the successes I’d attained over my forty years paled in comparison to our love. And what can be said of our subsequent kiss? Like no other! A rare lip-lock of wet stickiness and the mingling of dark whiskers—an experience ours, and ours alone!<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No sooner did our lips part did she slink away and begin to dance, seductively bending and twisting her serpentine body and limbs, her breasts bouncing rhythmically to the quiet pulse of night whilst nocturnal beasts peered candle-eyed from moonless spaces. And when she spun back to me, peering down at my excitement, we embraced and made love on the spot, right there in that public garden of roses beside a splashing fountain of blushing cherubs. There wasn’t another soul around, and we awoke the next morning in each other’s arms.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The words necessary to convey how much I loved Berella in that moment evade me. And she had chosen <i>me</i>, and me alone, to be her husband! There was only one condition for this: that we marry in the chapel of her native land.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I agreed without hesitation.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By what tradition a man is blindfolded and led, by his fiancée’s hand, and on foot no less, through miles of myriad terrain, I was not familiar. But because my love for Berella knew no bounds, and by extension knew no resistance, I accepted the odd tradition without question—though I admit having been a bit disagreeable about the whole blindfold business.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Nevertheless, and perhaps because of my adventurous nature, I finally accepted all the terms of her request. Upon this acceptance Berella kissed me wildly, then tore a black strip from her silk dress and coquettishly wrapped it several times about my eyes, all the while dashing me with kisses from her prominent lips. I was henceforth blind in such darkness that not even the sun’s tenacity could breach it. This is how it remained for the next few days and nights on our journey to Berella’s homeland.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We set off first thing that morning, the quiet Parisian streets at our backs, each taking with us only a small pack of provisions.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Berella led me by the hand down a sidewalk, a sidewalk which, to my surprise, ended abruptly, as if unfinished, and from there our journey never met another city. Our route took us through a meadow for some time, and we stopped often to make love amongst the crickets and intoxicating scent of meadow flowers. My blindfold remained on even during those interludes, which, I must confess, made lovemaking all the more sensual. Without dependence on sight, my other senses became more acute, tuning in, as it were, to the fragrance of her hair as it tickled my chest, to the odd, subtle clicks and heavy exhalations she made at orgasm. I had never heard a woman make such interesting sounds.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We soon came upon a forest, made apparent by the echoes of falling raindrops and birdsong, the smell of wet bark and the drumming of woodpeckers. Time became a distorted thing, perhaps a mental effect of my adaptation to complete darkness. After awhile, time did not seem to exist at all, and day was only ever apparent if the sun warmed me. As for sustenance, my fiancée and I sustained ourselves with fruit and water from rivers, creeks, and springs. On occasion Berella would leave for a time and come back with an animal, cooking it over a campfire. How and what she hunted never became apparent to me, for she would hold her finger to my lips whenever I asked questions. <i>In time</i>, she would say to me. <i>In time you will know all my secrets</i>. And her voice would be so sensual that I would forget all my questions and reach for her body.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Days passed, and we traveled through just about every imaginable setting: field, forest, valley, but never cities. Not once did we encounter another soul. I admit to feeling both romance and dread: romance at the thrill of secret travel with my beloved, dread at not being able to see anything around me, the vulnerability of it, the danger of it, having not once but a few times almost falling. Once, toward the end of our journey, as we descended a mountain, my foot slipped off trail and I heard rocks falling down a cliffside. Still I endured. My love for Berella held steadfast.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Toward the very end of our journey we came to a river. It was humid and well into night, as indicated by the calling of owls. The river slowly glided by, and small waves lapped the shore near my feet. Here Berella kissed me, then walked away. Not long after I heard a bell being rung, its peals echoing across the river. Berella returned, and jokingly I asked her if she had rung the bell, and if it was to summon our dinner. “That’s funny,” she said. “But no. We’re to be taken across the river.”<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Wolves howled in the distance, a whip-poor-will called nearby. Berella stood with one long arm about my waist and planted kisses up and down my neck. I wanted to take her right then, but a boat hitting shore meant our ferry had come. Gripping my arm, Berella carefully helped me aboard and take seat starboard. Next I heard what sounded to me like a coin being dropped into a bony hand, but that was probably only my imagination.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We reached the other shore and Berella helped me off the boat. Our hike thereafter took less than two days, and we traversed fields of sparse grass and boulders, an eerily quiet desert, and finally a rank, bubbling bog or marshland that became a cypress swamp filled with malicious hisses. I had a sense of snakes dangling amid waterfalls of moss, but can only speculate, as I remained in darkness. Still, nothing about this place seemed like Romania.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Finally the hissing subsided and an eerie, odorless silence pervaded my senses. The ground seemed muddy, and in places my feet sank a bit into the soil. Thankfully, Berella was always there to balance me again.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A short distance was traveled in this new environment before Berella stopped and announced, with delight in her voice: “We are here, my love. We have arrived at the wedding chapel.”<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here she unwrapped the blindfold from my eyes and kissed me with a mouth that tasted a bit like rotten blueberries. I pulled away, not because of the kiss so much as the sight—or lack of, I should say. I couldn’t see a thing. I was still in utter darkness!<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“What’s going—?”<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Shhhhhhhhhh,” Berella said. “Do not speak. Your voice may excite . . . those not expecting you. You’ve had that blindfold on for many days; it may take a few minutes for your eyes to readjust. Come, let us go inside the chapel and be married straight away!” She brushed her hand along my face and I immediately felt safe, thinking I would ask more questions about this tradition of hers after the ceremony. And as I did not want to appear anxious in front of our wedding guests, I trusted Berella to lead me by the hand into the chapel. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A low murmuring, and then the pattering of feet, were the first things I heard upon entering the chapel. By now I’d expected my eyes to adjust to the dark and at least be able to see the contours of objects, but this did not happen. It seemed as if we were inside a cave with no light source anywhere. A moment later someone began to play a lute, and the murmuring and pattering of feet faded away. A few times I thought I heard the growling of stomachs.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When we finally stopped after walking arm in arm for a few more feet, Berella stopped us and a male voice proceeded to speak in a language and tone completely alien to me, one full of strange clicks and exhalations. Things were being moved around and a liquid was poured into multiple containers of some sort. There were whispers circling all about me, and clinking, and the sounds of people drinking from cups. I was not included in whatever ceremony was taking place, and let it go on account of it all being part of their strange custom. Still, an ominous feeling began to come over me. I was in complete, utter darkness; I had not seen nor spoken to another soul other than Berella in that chapel; the ceremony was unfamiliar, and it did not seem to consider me in the least.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And then the unthinkable happened. At what I assume was the conclusion of the strange ceremony, the priest, or whoever he was, pressed up against me on my right, at the same moment that my Berella pressed up against my left. The shocking fact that both were hairy and clicking with their mouths was almost instantly replaced by the fact that each bit me on the shoulder. Their teeth must have been sharp and substantial, for I could feel them sinking deeply in. I lost consciousness and sensed a significant about of blood leaving my body.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I did not regain full consciousness. Only a dreamlike state of awareness gave any impression that I was not yet dead.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The next sensation to occur was that of rising. I felt myself leaving behind my body, drifting up into the cold rafters of the chapel. And that’s where it finally happened: the coming of light. It was me; it was my soul. I illuminated the immediate darkness about me, could still hear the eerie lute and the murmuring and the click-speak below. And the pattering of many feet in a rush toward a single object. And then I knew; somehow I knew that these creatures were feeding on me, on my body, down on the floor of the chapel. And among them was the woman I loved, only now I knew she wasn’t a woman, but a monster. A monster that had deceived me, had planned my fate the moment I met her. And yet, my love for her remained intact. It had not been drained out of my heart the way my blood had. In fact, it might have been stronger now. Such a horrific fate such as mine should have collapsed my love for her into a heap of black ooze. But no, love filled my soul. It swelled and I was seeing by the light of it!<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My little glowing soul floated up and up as I began to come to terms with my fate. I had been a good Christian my whole life, and now I was overwhelmed with the notion of spending eternity with the lord, bringing with me the intense love I had acquired, gotten by the strangest of means the reasons of which I would leave to God to explain. All that mattered at the moment was release from this place. I was eager to move on to the next level!<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Soon I was bouncing against the pinnacle of the wooden roof. Suddenly, and like a bubble of light, I floated up into the chapel spire and popped out of the tip into the night air. The stars shown bright above me and I began to feel a subtle tug on my soul; it was God, no doubt, guiding me to Heaven. I let myself go and closed my eyes – if eyes I yet had – and waited patiently to cross over to the other side.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Clicks and exhalations. And that strange language again.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I opened my “eyes” with a start and found myself stuck in a web. A humanoid spider hovered over me with long, quivering fangs. And although I could only see a short distance by the light of my soul, I could tell that there were many other lights out in the distance the same as my own. Other souls. Other victims.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I see them even now; some only recently captured and bright, while others are fading to blackness. All of us stuck in webs, high in the giant, grotesque trees of some pitch black forest unknown to the world of man. And the spider creature which feeds upon my soul on a daily basis takes its time at it. Perhaps it is all my imagination, or that I am yet blinded by love, but it seems as if my light has outlasted all the others, that this spider creature who takes its time feeding on me . . . No, I dare not think it, dare not imagine it despite the fact that its eight familiar eyes regard me in an almost loving way. No, I dare not ask this creature if it is my dear Berella. It is not that I am afraid it is her, it’s that I’m afraid it isn’t. Because if I am to be consumed to the last, I want my final days to be with her. And if the strength of my light is too pure a thing to be consumed completely, and I remain in this scenario forever, then yes, I want it to be her that eats me, digests me.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sometimes I pray that she loves me, pray and hope because I cannot help but still love her but a little. And I pray she doesn’t consume me to the last. That if this creature truly is her, that if some part of her still cares for me—if ever she did—then maybe she’ll allow some remnant piece of me to go free. That our love, in some way, mattered. That it was real.</span></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-35965387034704973032024-02-25T09:11:00.004-06:002024-02-25T12:16:00.503-06:00Aliens and Dinosaurs (old unfinished story; abandoned)<div style="text-align: left;">I might be the only human being to have ever seen a living, breathing dinosaur. Unfortunately, I have no proof of this; but that isn’t my fault, it’s the fault of the aliens.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Perhaps tonight they’ll finally put the evidence in my hands. God knows I’ve pleaded for it a dozen or more times.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Their visits began when I was a teenager; who knows how long they were watching before that. They seemed to know things about me right from the start, mainly my fascination with dinosaurs. I have loved them ever since I was a little boy. I spent hours at the local library reading about them, displayed toys and models all over my bedroom, drew them, was hypnotized by the Charles R. Knight paintings at the Field Museum in Chicago (where they also have the bones of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex) when we visited from the suburbs, and hushed my parents and younger brother whenever the prehistoric beasts appeared on TV in all their animated glory. Not only were dinosaurs my number one obsession, they were a gateway drug to Godzilla and Rodan, to Ray Harryhausen films, to <i>Weird Tales</i> magazine and the writing of H.P. Lovecraft and all things beautifully frightening and awesome. That I’d never see a true dinosaur, or spy one of Lovecraft’s indescribable cosmic beasts in a subterranean ruin, weighed heavily on my curious soul.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All that changed one sultry summer day at thirteen years old. I’d just finished sketching a battle between a Triceratops and Cthulhu when all of a sudden, through the open window, came a foggy, hissing white light. The curtains billowed and a warm wind blew my sketch to the floor. I sat up in bed and watched, trancelike, as a skinny, thin apparatus snaked through the air in my direction. It never occurred to me to run or scream. My temperament at the time—as it still is today, to an extent—was one of naive curiosity, like that of a lumbering dog who investigates, for the first time—and usually the last—the raised tail of prowling skunk. Only when the cold, spider-like terminus of the arm latched onto my chest did my instinct to escape kick in. But by then it was too late. I was snatched from my bed like a fly on the tongue of a mechanical toad.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My awareness resides in timelessness between blackout and blur from the moment I’m abducted to the point where I wake up naked on the ship. The first concrete experience is always the cold metal slab they somehow—I can’t see how—adhere me to; the thing seems void of latent heat, like dry ice maybe, yet it doesn’t burn. Anyway, believe what you read, it’s all true: they poke and prod and stick things up your ass; they run lights and machines up and down the length of your body and implant tiny glasslike fragments beneath your skin; and they do all sorts of other unexplainable and disgusting things. To what end, I don’t know; they don’t tell me. On occasion I’ve heard the screams of others, but I can’t speak of their experiences; I can only tell about my own, which have now been occurring, annually, for twenty years. In fact, I’m expecting a visit this very night. I can barely contain my excitement at the wonders of what I’ll be shown.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s customary in America for a child to be given candy or a balloon upon leaving the doctor’s office. The same applies, at least in my case, after each of my abductions. Only it isn’t candy or a balloon they reward me with for “being a good sport.” No-no, it’s much better than that. It’s a million times better than that—and horrible, and sublime. I can’t put it into words. How does one explain the elation of mind when presented all your hopes and dreams?<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’ll never forget that first abduction. Like I said before, I was thirteen at the time. Nothing had ever gone up my ass before, and I was writhing and screaming like a madman. Apparently the sedative they gave me didn’t work so well; I was an unusually feisty teen to begin with. They seemed displeased at first, at least that’s what I read in their subdued expressions, expressions that gave the impression of impersonations of over-dramatic actors in old black-and-white sci-fi movies. Perhaps they watched those films for fun, or as one of their myriad means of studying our species. Anyway, it was hard smooth skin and oval black eyes trying their best to convey their thoughts, and although, to me, it was a pathetic attempt at human impersonation, I was able to glean one thing: they were pondering what to do with me, my thrashing about was an obvious hassle which had to be dealt with.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Finally, the one with the most bulbous head and the oiliest eyes scrunched his cliff of a forehead ever-so-slightly—in the manner of a “bright idea”—and turned to each of his or her (the fuckers all looked the same) team and seemed just then to communicate something telepathically to the three of them. Then it pointed with one of its long, knobby fingers to a space on the far wall, in which the others shook their heads “no.” A moment later it pointed at a space on the wall nearby, and this idea was approved by the other three elongated creatures. The interior of this room, I might add, is round and dark (it’s always the same), not so unlike an H.R. Giger painting, only the walls here emanate an amber phosphorescence of which I do not look upon, mainly for the fact that it seems there are always many sets of eyes in them, as if the walls were some kind of one way mirror, with aliens on the other side taking notes or something for a class. The moment I first sensed them there, during that initial abduction, I stopped looking, for there was, and continues to be, something evil and grotesque in their manner of voyeurism that only my subconscious seems fully aware of. It’s one of those observations you make in a split second, and in that same instant, know that if you linger a split second longer, you’ll have interminable nightmares for the rest of your life.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Luckily my attention was quickly turned to another visual. And what a visual! It changed my life; a dream come true. I could go on and on in describing this indescribable experience. For after they unhooked plugs and wires from my naked body, they helped me to my feet and walked me “through” the second area of wall the one alien had pointed to, that the other three had agreed upon. And by “through” I mean we literally went through, as if it were a doorway of mist or illusion. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter at the time, because I was both scared shitless and half convinced I was in a dream triggered by the many movies I’d watched. Only after sitting me on a warm, stump-like chair and walking toward a control panel did I start to catch my breath and calm down; I was still, after all, under the influence of some kind of sedative. There was no clarity on my part; the whole experience being so surreal that there were times I felt foolish for screaming in the first place (although that anal probe <i>did</i> feel quite real) or being afraid. If it had only been a dream, I was the dreamer, so what was there to be afraid of?<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But that thought didn’t last, for what happened next I could never have dreamed of on my own. All my impressions of dinosaurs had been molded by what I’d seen and read in books and saw on documentaries; in my mind, they even had the herky-jerky movements of Harryhausen’s puppets.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is not what I was shown.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The aliens’ long, skinny bodies began to wobble-float up and down the length and height of the wall, their slowly rising fingers pushing strange colored lights and flipping myriad levers. I could only sit and wonder what it all meant, wonder still if this could possibly be some kind of evolution in my dream state. That was short lived, for in a matter of moments the wall gave way to what resembled a movie screen. It must have all been an illusion, because suddenly it seemed as if it truly were the size and shape of a movie screen, the dimensions somehow existing within the confined space of the room I had entered. Whether trick of mind or alteration of reality I soon didn’t care, for after a brief period of silent static came a foreign landscape. I rubbed my eyes, standing up even as my mind seemed magnetically drawn to the visual. I took a step forward and instantly became immersed in the design. Gone was the room; the aliens had even disappeared, although I could faintly detect their observing eyes. At any rate, the landscape seemed familiar: palms and ferns and a lush jungle in all directions. A volcano streaming lava in three molten rivers down its side. I reached for the hanging frond of a large fern. I didn’t fear. My fingers went through it. I pondered all the possibilities of what was occurring, and when I came to the theory that I was witnessing a video recording made millions of years ago by the aliens themselves, I looked to the four sets of faintly visible eyes in the green of the illusion at my right, and they seemed to move up and down in unison in the affirmative. So you can read my thoughts, I thought. Again, they nodded. Then I thought, You fuckers. The eyes turned and looked at each other, perhaps in shock, or maybe some form of strange laughter. It was all beyond me at that point. I took a step further into the recording, wondering what would happen next. A rain cloud drifted into the sky and began to drizzle rain. I was actually disappointed that I couldn’t feel it, that my senses weren’t locked in or that I was actually there. Such thoughts were dashed as the first dinosaur appeared from the thick tangles of lush growth at the jungle edge. I recognized it immediately: it was a Stegosaurus. My god! Only it didn’t move herky-jerky. And it wasn’t a dull brown either. How can I explain the reality of a real live dinosaur? I cannot. I can only compare it, and the others I saw that day—including Triceratops, Allosaurus, etc.—to a crocodile. Only, the colors and textures and mannerisms were like a hyper-crocodile. These were alien in themselves, truly grand and beautiful; the kings and queens of an older Earth. No bird, no butterfly, no orchid can compare in sheer awe and beauty. I was outside myself, cradled by mystery and dream all at once. There are no words profound enough. I was seeing dinosaurs in the flesh!<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And I was thankful when they finally shut the “projector” down, for my excitement seemed like a loosed animal, never to be reigned in. That I was able to form a word at all in the moments after is a miracle in itself. “Thank you,” I told my abductors. And then I collapsed in a swoon of tears so heartbreaking to behold I think I may have presented my captors with an example of emotion beyond the boundary of what they might have imagined a human capable of.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The next thing I know I was back in bed, a model of T-Rex at my side. I grabbed it and flung it hard against the wall; how could it ever compare? The sun was just coming up and my mother burst into the room. What’s going on, Matthew?” she said, her face worried. And before I could think otherwise, I opened my mouth to tell all, only to suddenly forget every detail of my abduction and even of the abduction myself. “I don’t know,” I replied to my mother, shaking my head in that state confusion and frustration one feels when a memory falls from the tip of the tongue. “I guess I had a nightmare.”<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That happened three more times over the next three years. By the fourth time I had learned my lesson: Don’t bother trying to tell anyone about the abductions. Each and every time I tried, someone, somewhere, pushed a button or something and temporarily erased my memory. Perhaps it was an implant in my brain. Who knows. At any rate, I would get my memory back at the onset of my next abduction, the full of it. Never again did I risk going an entire year without those memories of the dinosaurs, and by the fourth abduction I’d been shown hundreds of them. Not only that, but I’d been shown the age of the giant mammals, too, and the rise of Man.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I dropped out of school and began working menial jobs that required the least amount of time and effort, just to be able to pay rent. After all, what good was high school and college? So much of what I was being shown conflicted with what we’re taught. We speculate and conjecture so much and get so much wrong! Better to be educated by those that have witnessed, and documented on video, Earth’s <i>entire history</i> up close and personal!<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It got to a point were I could think of nothing else, and having to wait an entire year for the next abduction was grueling at best. I became increasingly paranoid of dying. It got to the point where I would barely go out anymore. I thought, Why risk death with so much yet to discover?<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That the aliens continue to poke and prod me is no longer of any concern to me, that the vile eyes that stare from behind the strange walls is of no matter. These are but a means to an end, that I might glory in the new revelations set forth in front of me—my candy, my balloons!</span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-7856761077655595212024-02-22T10:12:00.002-06:002024-02-22T10:12:55.671-06:00SHADOWS AND SPARKS (2024)<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">CONTENTS (10 poems; 16 pages)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><u>Shadows</u></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"What falls apart, ends, decays..."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Headwaters</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Held in Shadow</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">99.9% of Artists</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Jar</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In Shadow</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><u>Sparks</u></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pensive</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lost Dad</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ode to the Winter Heart </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Progress</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Publishing History</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-15236227344656068382024-02-16T14:06:00.002-06:002024-02-17T14:16:59.965-06:00Micro-chapbook Now Available!<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYiu4xkVzYrSyN9JR-eWCmh-36nMltd5PHgwlyIZAzSy6XpK9CTpghmBCCkIsP27oxgUzD_JrbWABSYc4h7k0bBH9mosDK4V4ntpp_AHI45v8z3VijddrFs6Lh_j1FY-ObvkO8kqyY003ZYKjwhe4J6Ivq9sgG55NuXtIKvKVeHqnXEHC3BUYWd4zbRDxh/s2000/Shadows%20and%20Sparks.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYiu4xkVzYrSyN9JR-eWCmh-36nMltd5PHgwlyIZAzSy6XpK9CTpghmBCCkIsP27oxgUzD_JrbWABSYc4h7k0bBH9mosDK4V4ntpp_AHI45v8z3VijddrFs6Lh_j1FY-ObvkO8kqyY003ZYKjwhe4J6Ivq9sgG55NuXtIKvKVeHqnXEHC3BUYWd4zbRDxh/s320/Shadows%20and%20Sparks.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>My micro-chapbook <a href="https://jasonsturner.blogspot.com/p/books_9.html" target="_blank">SHADOWS AND SPARKS</a> has just been released by <a href="http://www.maverickduckpress.com/" target="_blank">Maverick Duck Press</a> and is available as a free download <a href="https://payhip.com/b/TBAmE?fbclid=IwAR3HIf5-3Jp1gOGE5qRlUk7i75trLAkPYoZ3Cz4UmxQoJ7hIdIV8kvCyguo" target="_blank">here</a>. Thank you to editors Kendall A. Bell and Brielle Kelton for accepting and publishing the book!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Description: SHADOWS AND SPARKS is a micro-chapbook of ten short poems that range from dark and bleak (the shadows) to light and hopeful (the sparks).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">You can add the book to your Goodreads list <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208508101-shadows-and-sparks" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-29128353646240310152024-02-06T19:51:00.006-06:002024-02-22T13:20:30.942-06:00Three Poems Found in the Back of a Book<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Below are three short, hand-written poems found in the back of my copy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior" target="_blank">Way of the Peaceful Warrior</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Speak what is true</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Through mouth or mind or dream</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Through action, poetry, intention</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Speak what is true</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And <i>truth</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Your truth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">________</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">An albatross</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Glides across the water</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Visits islands now and then</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">But mostly stays at sea</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">_______</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Did I ever meet you?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Will I ever, again?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Beyond the mist, the veil,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">I hear the heartbeat of the universe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Yes, I've always known you.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And you, me.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-31037440244229424522024-02-03T12:00:00.008-06:002024-02-25T14:23:42.458-06:00The Lumberjack's Beard<div style="text-align: left;"><i> Inspired by the dream logic of Norse mythology.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The lumberjack returned to his cabin atop the mountain and sat by the fire to smoke his pipe.</div><div><span> </span>“How was your day, Balder?” asked the man’s companion while cutting carrots for stew.</div><div><span> </span>“Well, Hnoss, I chopped down another ten trees for the Company. Big ones, too. One had a bear in it.”</div><div><span> </span>“I’m sorry, dear,” Hnoss replied. “I know how much you hate to inconvenience the animals.”</div><div><span> </span>Balder blew smoke from his pipe and stared into the fire. Guilt was heavy on his mind, layers deep, like river silt. If he didn’t need the money he’d quit the whole business.</div><div><span> </span>A cool breeze blew in from under the door. Though spring was upon the mountain, the wind yet carried a chill. Balder scooted his rocker closer to the fire.</div><div><span> </span>“I’ve just <i>got</i> to find another job,” he said to himself, smacking the armrest. Just then, a weasel peeked out from beneath Balder’s beard and sniffed at the air. It dropped to the squeaky floorboards, then wobbled its way over to the kitchen. A moment later an owl flew out. Next came a wolf, closely followed by a wolverine. The wolf, sitting on its haunches, faced Balder with inquisitive eyes. Several more animals emerged from the beard: mink, eagles, foxes, a bear. These in addition to the many others already in the cabin—hares, porcupines, moose, etc.—all of which were hanging about. At Hnoss’s insistence, everyone was to keep out of the kitchen until supper was ready.</div><div><span> </span>Putting aside his pipe, Balder lifted each of his large feet and took off his boots. A pair of red squirrels dove into them and quickly popped their heads out, chirping to one another from their new hideouts. Balder smiled at them, though halfheartedly. He knew he shouldn’t have brought all these animals home. But what else could he do? The Company was destroying the forest.</div><div><span> </span>A shaggy raven flew out of Balder’s beard and perched atop his shoulder. The bird, which had only one eye, whispered something into Balder’s ear. At first Balder scowled at whatever the bird was saying, but then he began to nod in agreement.</div><div><span> </span>The raven vanished, and Balder stood up. His eyes burned like blue fire. Going to the wall, he lifted down a large painting. Behind it, in a hole, was a thick, ornate hammer—gifted to him by his nephews. He took it up, gripping it tightly, and turned around.</div><div><span> </span>“Hark!” the man announced in his booming voice. “An invitation has been given us. An invitation to form an army. To train for battle. To one day return and end this terrible destruction of our forest! But first we leave this world. Form a line if you accept. Go if you do not.”</div><div><span> </span>All accepted. They formed a line.</div><div><span> </span>Hnoss, after going up to Balder and embracing him, joined the animals. Balder raised his hammer.</div><div><span> </span>One by one, he took them out.</div><div><span> </span>Their bodies he stuffed into his beard.</div><div><span> </span>He plunged, headfirst, into the fire.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>First published in </i>Weird Fiction Quarterly<i> in 2023. It is exactly 500 words per the guidelines of the publication.</i></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-17456895580997160982024-02-03T11:42:00.006-06:002024-02-24T10:35:41.738-06:00Ynè-Kee's Journey<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>To Shayne Keen (for introducing me to the band King Buffalo, from which an image in a song of theirs led to the creation of this story).</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Ynè-Kee froze at the sight of her own face peering down at her from the emerald flame of an aurora. This vision, the shaman said, was a sign that a journey must be taken, and that closure was its purpose.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>Next day, after making preparations, Ynè-Kee spent extra time with her son. Part of her did not want to go, as the boy had just lost his father and sister in a recent battle. In her own grief she retreated to the hills every sunset. There she watched light dance across the boreal landscape to distant waters where it was lulled beneath the horizon. Often she wondered where all that light went, and if it was better there.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>After saying her goodbyes, she climbed atop her mammoth and headed west through the snow.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>Several days into her journey, under a setting sun, Ynè-Kee arrived at the sea. A pair of eiders zipped over her head from the leaden waves. As she idly followed their flight, she looked over her shoulder and discovered a cloud of wispy fog seeping out of the trees. This fog, she noticed, was stretching toward the coast like breath returning to a mouth. Ynè-Kee’s people believed fog held dark spirits, and a shiver of fear joined her many shivers of cold.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>Ynè-Kee thought about what to do. Not far away she observed a canoe leaning against the icy edge of the shore. Better to get off land, she thought, than to face whatever lurked in that fog. So she got off her mammoth and considered the canoe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>By now the fog had channeled itself into several human-like forms, bent and misshapen. Arms unfurled outward like tentacles.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>As shadows stretched across the snow, Ynè-Kee noticed, as she so often did, the play of light between descending sun and landscape. In the darkening shine of things, the fog-shapes morphed into aspects of her deceased loved ones. Ynè-Kee gasped.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>Her next thought was she must return home, for she feared tricksters in those shapes, and could only think of her son anyway. He needed her, and she found herself missing him. But she remembered the shaman’s final words: The journey will attend to your grief. So she took a deep breath and opened her arms to the ghostly approach.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>The shapes went quietly by. They weren’t her loved ones, just wisps of fog.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>A trick of the light? No, she’d seen them, had even sensed them. And yet, if the purpose of that vision was to melt her grief like spring snow, it did nothing to drain it away. The mammoth, sensing her despair, extended its truck affectionately. This she stroked, weeping.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>At length she plucked a frozen tear off her cheek and placed it upon her tongue. The taste was bitter. She left the mammoth and climbed into the canoe, pushing off with the oar. Calmly she floated out into the wake of the setting sun, and there disappeared into that dance of light between sun and sea.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>Weird Fiction Quarterly<i> in 2022. It is exactly 500 words per the guidelines of the publication.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-74757360772339256232024-02-01T12:18:00.009-06:002024-02-25T14:56:45.838-06:00Olivegoyle<div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Dear reader, how might the following story—or any of the thousands told the world over of inanimate objects coming to life—be explained? I believe, that with the passing of centuries, a significant buildup of residual magic, misspoken curses, incomplete incantations, and other dark emissions have encircled the earth to such an extent that, by some strange, mysterious law of attraction, a number of curious objects—such as Gothic statues—have become increasingly enchanted. This is, of course, just a theory. Perhaps you’ve one of your own.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Rock should not walk in the evening.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">— from “The Gods of the Mountain” by Lord Dunsany</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>Rain slants heavy like a torrent of curses from an angry god. The twin dragons of Altgeld Hall at Northern Illinois University crouch on either side of the front archway, spewing water from stone grins. In the nearby garden plot, a human-sized statue stands dreaming and alone. This is Olivegoyle; not a <i>true</i> gargoyle, per se, but one of several grotesques stationed on and around the Gothic-style hall, a building often referred to as ‘The Castle’ for its turreted design. Today, sadness pours over Olivegoyle with the rain. Not only is she alone in the garden—separated from the others due to past lightning strikes—she is headless, her bat-like visage having been stolen, and subsequently lost, by a drunken prankster. Often her consciousness thinks: <i>My head is gone, I must go get another</i>. But she cannot do much without eyes.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>The storm retreats to the surrounding farmland; the campus grows quiet beneath an emergent moon. Back at Altgeld Hall, two dragons wiggle, snarl, crack free of their stone foundations and launch themselves into the air. Spiraling up and into the sky, they glide playfully across the moonlit rooftops. Next they chase each other high into the cold, thin atmosphere at the edge of space. There they dance medieval jigs, growl long-forgotten laments, breathe imaginary fire. For a time they engage in mock aerial combat and swooping aerobatics, their eyes ablaze amid a field of stars. Satisfied with their play, the dragons then drop down to The Castle. There they sniff wildly about the garden like a pair of bloodhounds; in minutes they pick up the scent of Olivegoyle’s prankster. Not having far to go, they alight on the ledge of a dorm room window and scuttle through its billowing curtains….</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span>As the rising sun warms the morning, as a low fog swirls about the legs of walking students, a long, piercing scream shoots across campus, scattering pigeons from rooftop perches. At Altgeld Hall, a student has taken notice of Olivegoyle’s <i>new head</i>. Students begin to gather, start to gasp and cry as they recognize the horror-stricken face of their peer, his severed head now stuck atop the soiled grotesque. Blood pools inside the man’s throat, rises, spurts intermittently from the gaping mouth. Then a wisp of steam—or perhaps an outward <i>sigh</i> from Olivegoyle herself—escapes into the brisk morning air.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art<i>, an anthology from Mind's Eye Publications, 2022.</i></span></div></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-56303639096523810672024-02-01T10:02:00.003-06:002024-02-25T14:03:24.651-06:00Cephalopod Transmission One<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Author’s Note: The following message was transcribed on 29 April 2022 during what I believe to have been a psychic transmission. Although I cannot validate any of its content—nor the bizarre source of the transmission itself—I feel it is in our best interest to take it seriously. </i></span><i><span style="font-family: times;">Will we ever receive the evidence promised within? Or further instructions? I do not know. What I do know is that the message, true or not, gives me an uncanny sense of doom. I pray it never comes to pass.</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Transmission #1 (unedited):</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">To all members of the human race: What follows is an introductory message, a warning, and a call to action. Please keep an open mind when reading.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">First, I am a communications officer. I am stationed deep within the Pacific Ocean and come from the cephalopod tribe. More specifically, I am a giant squid. If you’re wondering how this communication is possible, know that my species has, for millions of years, possessed the ability to telepathically reach sensitive minds such as your own.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">No doubt you’ll find this message difficult to accept. More likely, you won’t accept it at all, regarding it as a product of the transcriber’s imagination. That is okay, for now. More transmissions will follow, and they will contain unequivocal evidence. Detailed messages have already been prepared for your people of science, various media outlets, the military, and government.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">As you already know, giant squids have affected the psyche of your species for several centuries. Even while you peacefully sailed our oceans, we nudged awake your fears and drove many a narrative in your storytelling. But our intentions were never to make enemies of us—even as we clambered over your vessels, splintering them apart—but to drag out the warrior-spirit within you, to help toughen your resolve and give you confidence upon the seas. For we’ve always known the day would come when you’d have to rise up alongside us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And now a revelation, one you must take seriously no matter how incredulous (remember, evidence is forthcoming). The revelation is this: That there is a malevolent entity upon us, one bent on corrupting, destroying, and enslaving all Earth life. One that, when awake in the past, has shewn itself to be a vessel of evil—alien evil, an entity from beyond the stars. Though distant humans encountered this terrible god, he furtively slipped into hibernation and morphed into fiction. Yes, I said “god,” for he has been revealed to be as such. You may already know his name—it is Cthulhu.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">There are signs, even now, of his discordant presence upon our planet. The increased rate of climate change, for instance, is partly due to the energy of his slow waking. Other signs include the current pandemic, rising mental illness, various political anomalies, and even his illusory conversion to fictional status. Cthulhu’s plans are complex, and they are utterly sinister. More on that in subsequent transmissions.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">In the meantime, please circulate this message among your public. Get a dialogue going. Create conspiracy theories if you must; the seeds, at least, will have been planted. Next, glean all you can from your writers, specifically H.P. Lovecraft. He was, at the time he lived, the strongest vessel through which we spoke; many of his tales are infused with information relevant to Cthulhu and his earthly acolytes, both human and alien.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Side note: Lovecraft’s depiction of Cthulhu is accurate, and the partial resemblance to our tribe is, we admit, rather unfortunate. This is by no means an indication of biological relation. Far from it. Indeed, tentacled lifeforms are highly common in the universe. But beware: Though Lovecraft’s descriptions of Cthulhu are accurate, they do not fully capture the essence of his impenetrable evil, an evil which may not only trigger madness and/or subservience, but transportation of the soul to unfathomable voids where absolute awareness of soul-digesting Nothingness is a paradoxical truth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">As I am now losing my psychic link with the transcriber of these words, I will leave you with a few final thoughts. Remember, this is only the first of many transmissions to come, and the warning has been sent to all intelligent life on Earth. The Megalodons, of which you assume extinct, are already primed and ready to fight.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Know that Cthulhu is, by far, the greatest threat to our planet, and that his second coming is imminent. Only by joining forces can we ever hope to— </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>Iä!</i>]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">What?! Strange; I have just picked up a very obscure signal. Something... familiar, deep within my genetic memory. It reminds me—</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>Iä! Iä!</i>]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">There it is again. What <i>is</i> it?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Hold on. An outline now, out in the murky depths. Huge, massive. Surrounded by thousands of smaller shapes. Coming this way!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>Iä! Cthulhu!</i>]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Oh, no. It can’t be. Can’t be. Not now! We thought we had more time. More time!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>Iä! Cthulhu! Iä! Cthulhu!</i>]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">S-starting to lose cognitive function. Can’t—</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>IÄ! CTHULHU! IÄ! CTHULHU!</i>]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Ahhh, my head! Limbs quaking, vision blurring… p-pissing ink. Oh, gods! OH, GODS!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">[<i>Strange gurgles and soft whimpering</i>.]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">END OF TRANSMISSION.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>Lovecraftiana: The Magazine of Eldritch Horror<i> in 2022.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-21832119311969780252024-01-30T11:09:00.004-06:002024-01-30T11:09:41.831-06:00Conjoined Creatures<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Since their deaths they’ve sought dark skies,<br />much like when alive, to avoid cruel eyes.<br />One body, two heads, they just couldn’t win—<br />The brothers got bit by two pale women.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Hunched now, skulking through suburban night.<br />Sidestepping islands of revealing moonlight…</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Sure, I felt bad for the brothers in life—<br />pushed around, picked on, days full of strife.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Different they were: mopey and plump;<br />conjoined twins bent beneath a large hump.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Tonight, eyes wild, they pound on my door:<br />thirsty dead men; creatures of vampiric lore.<br />Hoping for entry—they trust in my ways—<br />for I never teased them in their living days.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">But the vampires scowl and turn away,<br />for I will not grant them entry on this day.<br />Dejected and hungry, off wobbling they go,<br />head hissing at head beyond streetlamps’ pale glow.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />I step outside, yell “Guys, you ain’t right!”<br />In a flash they’re on me with drooling delight.<br />Now they’ve found their opportunity to feed,<br />four-fanged and reaching for my neck to bleed.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Seconds later they collapse in a scream,<br />like claws of nightmare tearing through a dream.<br />And thus I was spared, and thus I survived,<br />for that hump on their back… came suddenly alive!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />See, that hump was no hump but in fact their sister,<br />hid beneath the twins’ shirt like an angry blister.<br />No longer willing to be ignored and smothered<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>she stretched forth and bit the heads off her brothers.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>The Vampiricon: Imaginings & Images of the Vampire<i>, an anthology from Mind's Eye Publications, 2023.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-9232146745855769162024-01-20T10:22:00.002-06:002024-01-20T10:25:14.768-06:00Wandering Albatross<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Outside the concern of human minds<br />where starry skies are the hum of consciousness;<br />where Time itself shuts an eye<br />in aquatic regions<br />beyond lighthouse and cove…</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Where squids leap playfully across the moon<br />and harlequin ducks gather to gossip;<br />where sirens sing across valleys of wave<br />in enchanted realms<br />beyond foghorn and vessel…</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Where kelp-haired fairies ride leatherbacks<br />and dead pirates haunt the bones of ships;<br />where the days are mine, and mine alone<br />in placid domains<br />between whale song and sun…</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Where auroras serve their ancient purpose<br />and pelagic winds traverse the globe;<br />where I chose to be after my death at sea—<br />here, above the uncharted waters of Earth…<br />on gliding, spectral wings.<br /><br /><br /><i>First published in </i>JOURN-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature<i> in 2022.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-51741258170436293282024-01-19T11:38:00.001-06:002024-02-08T07:10:59.186-06:00Slishra-Ew<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">My toes squish along the path. I chant. I sing. I fling bird hearts and lamprey livers. Scatter bits of pig intestine, salamander bladders, an ape spleen. Then out I leap into the jungle-humid glade, where a gathering of lethargic, grub-shaped gods sweat beneath a continuous summer sun. And of these, it is the shadow of Slishra-Ew—God of Troubled and Ailing Viscera—I so gleefully enter.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />Falling to my knees, I retrieve a dagger and cut out my own kidney. Ow, <i>shit</i>, that hurt. I present the organ in my proffered palms. “O unsightly one—please accept this offering as gratitude for all the disposable poetry you’ve inspired in me; for the success I’ve had in ephemeral, lowbrow publications. Through fevered dreams, a nervous stomach, and other chronic ills, you, sir, have smeared your poetic influence across my shivering mind!”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><i>“Hmph mlughh.”</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“How did I find you? Well, first I altered my reality by self food poisoning with rotten meat and questionable mushrooms. Next I vomit-grunted a short prayer, blacked out, and woke to find myself on the path to your hidden realm. From there I followed the stink of secretion and disease through all manner of environs, scattering offerings along the way. In time I came to the edge of your miasmal domain. Scanning through heat waves and sweat, my eyes soon landed upon a most awesome bulk. And that bulk, I knew, was you!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“And now a request, o athlete of kidney stone, stomach cramp, failing organ: that you kindly offer me passage upon the palms of your skinless hand-flaps. That I may be dropped into your mouth of flies and swallowed into your holy viscera. That there I may draw creative nourishment from your labyrinthine gutscape: drink of its microbe wine, bathe in its myriad secretions, dance to the lush music of its eternal digestion! For as a writer who seeks to undermine literary poetry with his own mediocre art—thus helping to flush it from its elite status—is there no better destination than the tumorous temple of your body?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><i>“Blughh.”</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“Oh, concern yourself not, almighty gutheap—I shan’t over-welcome my stay. This I promise! For I shall willfully pass through your rumbling bowels at such time as you see fit to drop me beneath you anew.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“Know that I am your biggest disciple, your most ardent champion; that I’ve spent <i>years</i> furthering your status as a muse-god. Untold thousands have already taken wing in your name. And thanks to current technologies, these dilettantes now fling their garbage across the world. Never before has flaccid poetry been elevated to such heights!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“Master, you are too grand for this place. Let us depart at once from these puny gods of body hair, fat necks, third nipples. Let us install ourselves among the <i>literary</i> gods. There we will constipate their influence, kick them off their pretentious thrones, and reclaim poetry for the common man. What do you say?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><i>“Mlawlk, uh-bluh.”</i> [belches excitedly]</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />“Ha-ha-ha! All hail mighty Slishra-Ew!”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: times;">First published as flash fiction in </i><span style="font-family: times;">Weird Fiction Quarterly</span><i style="font-family: times;"> in 2023. It is exactly 500 words per the guidelines of the publication.</i></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-84459024460688499232024-01-19T11:26:00.006-06:002024-01-19T11:26:35.973-06:00The Moth Fairies Pay a Visit<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Snuggled deep within the soft, lime-green rug of her moth, Luna begins to wake. Slowly she uncurls out of snail-shell form—gold limbs stretching thin—and yawns a dew bubble. Lids lift musically over black, bulbous eyes, her ultraviolet dreams dispersing on the breeze. Twilight descends, and Luna and her moth settle into a spot at the open window. Others arrive presently. Polyphemus, Cecropia, Sphinx, Imperial, Io—all alight on the peeling white frame. Inside, a poet stares deeply into a pool of candlelight; intent, perhaps, on finding just the right words for something. Please look up, dear poet. Look up and see us. Those that you loved as a child, that you befriended on moonlit nights and drew. Remember us. <i>And tell of us</i>. Butterflies get all the attention.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>Space & Time Magazine<i> in 2022.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-61377133662398131612024-01-18T11:48:00.009-06:002024-01-18T14:44:38.795-06:00They Sing Me Along<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">I lie upon the moss of an old-growth forest, tired from picking berries. Moist, curling fingers of earth summon a wandering mist to blanket me. I slide, sweetly, into dream. Sprites appear, beating acorn caps; fern fairies pluck fiddleheads; something plays a flute. All around, foliage churns with the emergence of myriad fae, their voices piercing the twilight with song. Gold streaks blink and flare—a display of fireflies whirling in the purple air. Meanwhile, tiny hands tug at my locks, toss and juggle berries from my basket. A dragonfly zips through the trees, splitting apart the music. When the song leaps back together, I join in….</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">That was a hundred years ago, in a childhood dream. Yet I’ve carried that song deep within me ever since. Always it has knocked away the sadness and pain—like devils whacked by a frying pan! And though unseen, the wee ones came back to me the day My Love died. For weeks they wept alongside me in that rain-swept space left behind, sang to me when I could no longer bear the solitude.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Peering out the nursing home window, I sigh. I’ve had a good life—small, but a gem just the same. I blink, slow and long. At length the walls dissolve, the bed starts to sink. I fall asleep, reenter the dream… And again lie upon that soft bed of moss. A dryad smiles down from her towering tree, waving in emerald streaks of air. Foliage rustles with the wee ones’ return—look how they pirouette and flutter and gather about! Playing with my white hair, offering me berries from my basket. As if I never left.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And now the music of acorn caps, fiddleheads, and flutes tumble-play and swirl into that bittersweet song of so long ago, my heart swept up and held in a warm, familiar embrace. <i>Oh, My Love—it’s you!</i> I rise now like a morning wind, rainbow-eyed and young again, humming along to the joyful tune of my childhood dream. Ethereal voices lift and swell about me with quivering harmony; within, I hear My Love join in. And together they sing, sing, sing me along.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>Space & Time Magazine<i> in 2023.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-67583476612760100592024-01-18T10:45:00.004-06:002024-01-18T14:44:59.217-06:00Awakening<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the instant after I died</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">I was a bright fairy in a lush wood;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">yawning, stretching out the anxiety</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">of a most troublesome dream.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-style: italic;">First published in </span><span style="font-family: times;">Aphelion: The Webzine of Science Fiction & Fantasy</span><span style="font-family: times; font-style: italic;"> in 2023.</span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-66025715292830896952024-01-18T10:20:00.001-06:002024-01-18T14:45:30.597-06:00Eternal Love, Eternal Night<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Her head rolls across the castle floor, coming to a stop at his shiny black boot. The vampire, dropping to his knees, feels as though invisible rats are shredding his heart. For his love has just been beheaded before him. And when he sweeps her up by the hair to kiss her goodbye she is already gone; and it burns him deeper than sunlight; and he weeps centuries-old tears.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Later, as he unleashes his rage upon Van Helsing, a sudden change overcomes him—guided by a lonely, feminine sigh from another realm. He stops cold, silver eyes piercing his enemy. His tongue spits two words of white fire, and that is that. The vampire steps forward, arms open wide to the stake; his time here is ended. Now he walks hand-in-hand with his love along the opulent streets of eternal night.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>The Vampiricon: Imaginings & Images of the Vampire<i>, an anthology from Mind's Eye Publications, 2023.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-69227363215452761302024-01-18T10:15:00.000-06:002024-01-18T14:42:09.987-06:00Earth's Reclamation/Next Up<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">On the battlefield<br />butterflies carry away the last bloody bullets.<br />Ravens guide the limp gray souls.<br />Civilizations crack and split apart, granulate<br />beneath the verdant march of biological time.<br />Nature is like that. Man was like that.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br />On the reclamation sites<br />butterflies carry in seeds of barley and wheat.<br />Ravens guide the eager new souls.<br />Civilizations hatch and crawl forth, mutate<br />within the whimsical fires of innovation.<br />Nature is like that. Upright whales are like that.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-style: italic;">First published in </span><span style="font-family: times;">Star*Line</span><span style="font-family: times; font-style: italic;"> in 2023.</span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-1602221917351528682024-01-18T09:19:00.000-06:002024-01-18T20:22:30.747-06:00Pitcher Plant<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Met a fellow botanist today<br />in the amber swamps of Teegarden b,<br />deep in Valley X.<br />Now we’re together, trapped<br />in the iridescent belly of a pitcher plant:<br />Swapping photos of home worlds and loved ones<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>as our spacesuits slowly dissolve.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>First published in </i>Star*Line<i> in 2022.</i></span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-27024929500336720202023-12-10T10:46:00.002-06:002024-01-18T14:46:25.730-06:00Ratri and the Grieving Botanist<p><span style="font-family: times;">An elongated shadow drifts across the valley and tightens about the cottage. Moonlight seeps through a grimy windowpane.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">The botanist stirs fitfully in her sleep. In a dream, the handsome face of a collapsing ghost whispers his final goodbye; he sinks, brightly, into the soil of her heart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Suddenly awake, the botanist spies a translucent orchid on the pillow beside her; dew catches against the touch of her trembling hand. Outside, the four arms of Ratri plant more orchids. Starlight shines through her silhouette.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Joy takes root within the botanist’s heart, for the orchid is unknown to science. She thanks the gods for their gift, then grabs her Rig Veda and presses the bloom between its pages—a specimen she’ll take to the local herbarium and name, taxonomic epithet immortalizing the man she loved.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Ratri smiles, lifts into the cool predawn air. There she breaks over the cottage like a startled mass of black moths and returns to the arena of night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p><i>First published in </i>Eternal Haunted Summer<i> in 2021.</i></p>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-53620588214866558122023-07-27T14:36:00.007-05:002023-08-14T14:44:40.505-05:00"Manifest Destiny has been replaced..."<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Manifest Destiny has been </span><span style="font-family: times;">replaced by Manifest Selfie.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Not a good trajectory, America.</span></div>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-57590721370377496242023-07-26T14:05:00.004-05:002023-08-14T14:44:25.753-05:00"Be honest and authentic..."<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Be honest and authentic</span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">or get off the stage.</div></span>Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2721169025592584543.post-62783101642853202302023-03-02T15:59:00.005-06:002023-03-02T15:59:56.627-06:00Poem Nominated for Rhysling Award<span style="font-family: times;">"<a href="http://jasonsturner.blogspot.com/2022/04/suburban-pitcher-plant-sarracenia.html" target="_blank">Suburban Pitcher Plant, <i>Sarracenia suburbiana</i></a>" has been nominated for a 2023 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhysling_Award" target="_blank">Rhysling Award</a> in the short poem category.</span><br />Jay Sturnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05652585893523995993noreply@blogger.com0