Author Jay Sturner

Tonight we sense him, hidden in the sunken shadows of the bedroom: a ghoul moving silent, forcing quiet the other monsters. Chunks of enamel, grooved by nightly gnawing, fatten his belly. And our own teeth tighten in the jaw, fight the urge to drop and slip away, to escape his gluttonous rage. You see, the foul thing broke from fairy law: took to ripping out the loose teeth of children, a calcareous shit slipped beneath their bloodied pillows in a gesture of defiance; a jab at us proper fairies. And though imprisoned for a time in the amber caves, he broke free—saber arms flapping and chipping with madness. Now we wait within this toy-box, scanning the room for residual energies: the moans of bloody roots, the chattering of crowns, the hissing red of severed nerves . . . . Such things betray his whereabouts. At last we fly and crawl from the moonlit box, eyes narrowed and tongues writhing with an invocation. Oh how swift, how sweet the coming of revenge from its ancient lair!

for W.H. Pugmire Atop great mountains, on high thrones, sit the gods—beards long and glowing with the light of dead stars. Always their dark, playful eyes are hot with mischief. They delight in a belief that the goddesses are impressed by their whimsical creations, amused even. Surely they got a kick out of Homo sapiens , that inferior clay fumbling wildly over the layout of design—such fodder for comedy! Perhaps. But in dull pockets of timelessness, when the bearded ones are idle, the goddesses—because it is their way—have been known to nurture humanity’s fetal spirit, to channel love there, to plant seeds of art and philosophy, to spark ambition, and curiosity. Myriad tasks are assigned to fairies, mystics, and angels; demons too, if they should lead to a truth. Much then becomes enhanced in the spectra of human souls, in the course of man’s future. Sure, the gods are ingenious and powerful in their ways; of that there is no doubt. But lest they forget, they are equaled. Very much eq

Gold ‘n’ Blue Sunrise Forks of the River WMA, Knoxville, TN July 7, 2015 On glistening sunflowers, In ghosts of morning mist, Whistle-buzzy buntings Open us to joy. Indigo Bunting by Jimmy Tucker (From the book Wilderness & Love )

Spring migration: Fragments of rainbow flash among the leaves Prairie Warbler by Melinda Fawver (From the book Wilderness & Love )

Song Sparrow sings and sings… He could have been called Sore Throat Sparrow (From the book Wilderness & Love )

Somewhere between soft touching and hard kissing, I swerved into love; somewhere between a dead end and a wreck at a hairpin turn. I wrote exotic poems for her, sang them through a hedge of nettle and wire. And when she drained my heart pallid I crumbled comatose for years, for years. O rose of my chest, bramble of the bones, where love sleeps amid a ruin of brick and leaf— Bloom in my teeth, pollinate the tongue. Press your thorns gently to the backs of my eyes! "Vernal Heart" by Bryan Davis (From the book Wilderness & Love )

Oak leaves tremble in the wind, drip with recent rain. They turn orange and fall to know winter from below. I know winter from above. My place at the window, coffee in hand as thoughts rise and take shape. I’ve seen the leaves shine and die. Seen them shake in storms and fall from crowns. From this I have gathered insight: In each moment, a heart shines, a body dies. Lives bend beneath wind. They’ll all go orange inside to know winter from below. One day I too will fade: drip with a lifetime of storms— float leaf-like into the hands of winter. (From the book Wilderness & Love )

See the eagle spread his wings, soar across the sky of white dreams. Watch as a million arms reach for a falling feather on the breeze. See the elders shake their hair, fling an old song to the four seas. Watch as oiled machines plow through red clay and sky. We of this country burn with the hope of softening our heart’s history, yet polish our cups of tarnished gold, strike with hot guns and false tongues. We drive stakes into the skin of Earth, hang our hats on melting icebergs. How long till we clip the eagle’s wings? Stick him in a cage all fat and tame? Bald Eagle by Barry Spruce (From the book Wilderness & Love )

As the airplane enters the towering clouds, Billy spies wispy ghosts and shifting white valleys. What is turbulence to everyone else, to Billy is an angry fog monster.   An old woman snores beside him. Others resign to airport novels, electronics, and the anticipation of the cart. Humming engines and whooshing air vents backdrop the cries of a baby, of two teenage girls absorbed in gossip.   Billy peers out the cold, turbid window and sees Harryhausen beasts run amok in the cloudscape: dinosaurs gnawing on cars and bridges, a distant Cyclops ripping a train off its tracks.   A break in the clouds reveals a stretch of suburbia, of baseball fields where an interest in sports fell short of home plate. All around, long thin roads blink with ant-cars: “Ants can lift fifty times their own weight, you know,” his mother once said, not long before getting sick.   The edge of an upcoming cirrus cloud swirls over the wings: Here comes Conan through the smoke of battle, sword dripping with ruddy s

" Intimate Universes " has been nominated for a 2015 Rhysling Award in the short poem category.