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The Lamp Filament by John
C. Mannone At the scene by the dark countryside, summer flies hang in the feculent
heat—no skid marks—a ‘98 Ford Escort left the road, tumbled down a steep embankment,
and lay inverted on limestone rocks. Officers bag the driver’s body
for the morgue. It seems the LA female fell asleep, lost control. The car didn’t
explode as in the movies. The
coroner says the time of death, which later coincides with what witnesses said when they noticed the time the victim’s
car left her home. But something isn’t right. I study her body and effects more closely,
learn she was
Rosemary Collins—a friend I dated twenty years ago during my college days. Rose was always careful, sensible.
~ The autopsy
reveals she was three months pregnant. Toxicology
shows no alcohol, no drugs but her
neck was broken; bruises and contusions on
her face. One might argue that it happened when the
car crashed causing blunt force trauma, as
well as the cervical fractures to her neck, but detectives
suspect foul play. Susan, the victim’s sister, said Rose argued with Steven Holder, a guy she was with who forced himself
on her a few months earlier. She,
in tears, refused his wanting her to abort
the baby. Rose told
Susan about the rape, the splitting-up, and
the promise to tell everyone what he had done. Dr. Holder’s
practice would be ruined as a trauma psychologist
for rape victims, now a perp himself. That fear
would establish motive. On the night of
the accident, she was likely followed by Holder to
the outskirts of town where he planned to kill her, he had a shaky alibi but
the police couldn’t place him there.
~ I flash
back to the accident site later in the daylight, ponder the wreckage, search for clues remaining silent: The afternoon sun glances
through the trees, catches the
reflector in the taillight. I lull in the red glints, remember
the complex physics of a simple light bulb. Something
about those electrons in conduction bands of tungsten
filaments—the glow of blackbody radiation that Newton’s physics cannot explain but that quantum
physics of Planck and Einstein could.
~ I head to
the lab juggling equations. Chemical and
metallurgical analysis of the wire confirms the multicolored
deposits—oxides and nitrides of
tungsten and molybdenum—are insufficient to warrant
resistive failure of the filament. The coil was
not breached, but deformed by impact acceleration
of the 3000-degree-Kelvin-hot wire. On
the contrary, a cold coil would’ve suffered brittle fracture on impact. The brake lights must have
been burning bright at the time of impact. She likely
saw him coming, furious. When he slammed into
her, she broke hard to keep from going over the ledge, but
couldn’t stop the fall. No guardrail. No
burned rubber could be left on the gravel. Moments
after the car wreck, he must have bludgeoned her with a hammer because the wreckage couldn’t have killed her that
way. Microscopic chips of red paint found
on the shattered plastic housing of the taillight assembly
were consistent with the make and model of
GM cars like Holder drives. A search warrant issued, forensics
confirms the paint came from his car. He
is arrested and convicted because a simple light bulb
filament has shed light on the dark
killer.
Like Sherlock Holmes by John C. Mannone The detective
stands confident, sure, tweed cap brimming eyes, smoldering pipe
in hand; pulls the cuff of his coat tight to stay the
dawn chill. Cemetery grass stirs. And wind ruffles the fallen leaves;
sun, too angry to sift through the fog, to shine on the
marble stone etched with the name of the thug who lunged
at the young girl with a knife simply to scare her into
his Skylark car. His heavy-footed moves set the fates: the
imbalance, the stumbling over rocks, the piercing of
her little heart, the rush of screamless air from her lungs. Death by
this thief, who had remained invisible to society all his
life, now made apparent his intents, his heart shriveled, hatred blinding
him in his own reflection. His mother, whom he had tried
to please by bringing this small child to her, would
have stirred the ground where she lay loosing her ashes
to the wind. But there’s only her charred remains left
to cry for her son. And the hounds howl in the
distance hungry for fox. The detective
shakes his head, blares out: Even deranged fathers are sly thieves
that try to hide truth. He stokes his pipe, turns to
the other tombstone, whispers that the crocus will bloom on
the little girl’s gravesite; the sun will smile, and the
fog will brush its muted watercolors on the marble
stone.
A Glint of Steel by
John C. Mannone A few cinders poofed inside
the stone ring and charcoal ash flew up as dust-soot into the cold dawn.
Shriveled-up bacon draped the hickory limbs where they had once crackled over fire; ranch
coffee in aluminum pots, muddied with grounds, now tepid and abandoned; and blackberry
jam, crusted on half-bitten biscuits, stopped oozing on hardened crumbs long before noon.
And the flies swarmed. Dew streaked the nylon tents in dead
calm air. Even the squirrels and the chickadees were quiet today. The last stand of virgin
timber stood silent. Only lizards stirred. The skinks scurried over the oak picnic tables—one
was covered over with yesterday’s newspaper. The headline read that a suspect
in the Jamestown murders had escaped from the maximum security prison. One of the guards
was shiv’d through his neck. It was unwritten how he had managed that. The escapee once told the
news media why he is the way he is, does what he does. “I used to think that I was
a serial killer, but I’m not; momma said so.” Witnesses said they saw him head
south toward the border, but he disappeared as a ghost. ~~~ By the woods north of town, seven teens from Grendel County High
had camped in the holler. Echoes of their cries still hung on tulip poplars and loblolly
pines. And those pines needled the air, scarlet dripping with the mist. The sun rose with blood
on its hands and a glint of steel in its eyes.
Abstract Art by
John C. Mannone At first, I thought someone painted abstract
art on the bathroom wall— blood-red blotches
threading with blue on an off-white wall—a patriotic theme but
I didn’t see the ink brushes the artist might have left,
only blue-black ink on the floor by the closet door cracked open.
Red seeping out. I didn’t see the body stuffed
into that space; choked, I couldn’t scream, or urinate and I had to get
out of this bathroom now, tell someone, the manager, the
police. I turned to rush out but the door was locked. I started pounding on
the door, yelling, “Let me out!” A faucet, on full
hot, emptied itself steaming the room. I fell to the floor, horror
enveloping me like vapor, but a soft voice growing
louder in my ear said, Get up.
Get up!
I awaken; crayon in my hand.
The apartment building by John C. Mannone doesn’t welcome
the immigrants, it looks outside with window-sagging eyes, no welcome mat
that’s not flipped on its back—silent side up. At night, mother and child hear the wall mumble in
their native tongue, warns them of looming nightmares—voices
of their predecessors. In the morning,
more of yellowing wallpaper is torn from night’s anguish. It couldn’t
speak, picture-less nails had sutured its mouth shut. But the bedbugs spoke in Braille with a trail of
welts, scratchy words proclaiming the blind neglect of the
landlord. The wastebasket outside his office cries
boisterously, but crumpled papers inside rustle louder with their complaint:
forged disclosure forms about health code violations. The mother doesn’t know. Her little girl simply sings
as she plays on the porch with the curling paint chips that
also lullaby their own appealing sweetness.
Her beautiful braided hair tight as a fist blares the secret
of dangerously high levels of lead. Even her grave cannot keep
it quiet. __________________________________________________________________ Author’s
Note: This is a speculative poem inspired by a ‘Forensic Files’ episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T-_b0HBGmw (accessed
February 21, 2021) In memoriam of Sunday James
Abek (1997-2000).
Disinfected by John C. Mannone Sky is still dark
with cracks of light when we arrive at the river. Fog from after-rain mists
the brackish gray water and the amorphous shape floating between the
harbor pylons just as the informant said. The charred remains
sloshes, waves slap concrete; crabs latched to torso clawing remnants
of breast—someone’s lover, someone’s daughter. We grapple her
body, drag it to shore and into a plastic bag: her nose, mouth, tinted
with blood, her
insides exploded from flames. Probably tortured before her body was cast into
swift water. The ride to the morgue, silent, except for the swish of
puddled rain entrained by tire treads—a static hush, perhaps a lament for this
young woman. Body bag crinkles when it’s unzipped. Under fluorescent
lights, the conflagration didn’t leave much more than pallor. Mouth gaped open, but
taciturn. Only screams of horror socket her eyes. I hear it as if it were my
own child’s voice. That night in my bed, I lie still unable to sleep,
the stench of
bleach in my nostrils, my hands shriveled from scrubbing,
scrubbing clean the blood
that seeped out. My own heart sutured by duty, my eyes still burning from
what they’ve seen and from the horror they have yet to see.
Doctors
Make Good Killers by
John C. Mannone She’s
completely relaxed after
a dose of good sex and nods
off under the silk touch
of satin sheets. He slips
into the bathroom looks
into the hard mirror. Years of
medical practice stare
back through haggard eyes, through
the trauma of
an emergency room at St. Christopher’s,
the stress of
his own weak heart and all
the gambling of
his career. Literally. There’s
no other way to recover the money he owes to the mobster bookies, not even prayer— no absolution for foolishness before he
gets whacked by a couple
of goons. Desperation
is always a poor accomplice of Deceit.
She didn’t know that love
could be supplanted
by Greed. He didn’t
either. Maybe the
insurance money will
assuage the guilt. He removes
the vial of
succinylcholine from his
medical bag, draws
the solution into the
barrel of the needle, squirts
the air bubbles out. The
needle gleams in the soft yellow light, his face pallor with fear but as colorless
as Sux— an affectionate
name for the
paralytic muscle relaxant used
for ease of intubation of ventilators for his seriously afflicted COVID patients; his unsuspecting
wife. A perfect
poison that
leaves no trace quickly
breaking down into
natural chemistry. He bends
over his wife, stutters
a nearly silent Hail Mary
before he
injects, softly kisses,
and whispers, “Please
forgive me.” He
plunges the syringe into his own thigh to give him a little time— thirty minutes, maybe
more to clean
up the crime scene before
visceral congestion, before
severe pulmonary edema, before petechial hemorrhaging of heart, lungs —before the visitation
of death. He leaves
a note for his wife [for
her eyes only]. Not a suicide lest
she wouldn’t be able to collect the insurance. “Pay Guido” it said: the amount and directions.
She didn’t know they
were going to kill her,
too. Naturally, his death will
look like a heart attack, for sure, this has broken
his heart. He
lies next to his beloved and sleeps.
He
Wore a Purple Heart Inside a Gray Uniform John C. Mannone After the Battle
of Antietam, September 17, 1862
Will
had lost a lot of valiant blood and slips into shock. Medics carry him across the Potomac,
gray water rippling in a stiff breeze. That same bluster flaps the canvas of a field-tent
where the medics triage him; he waits in and out of sleep with an aching pain
in his arm. They move him to a makeshift hospital, a converted retail building
in a small West Virginia town, when the waning gibbous moon has barely risen
and the nighthawks begin their lament. The doctor, apron’d in blood, saunters
over to see him. “Who you with, Corporal?” “Thirteenth Virginia, Sir.” Will shifts his body trying
to ease his discomfort. “I survived the volleys in the West woods but took lead in
the Cornfields.” “That’s a nasty wound, Son.”
The doctor’s eyes betray his understatement that the nurse senses. She remains
silent and moves behind Will, who is lying on a stretcher; she shakes her head
almost imperceptibly from left to right, right to left, a few times. She had
seen that same look of fear in so many other young soldiers but none so
intensified as from those who had fought in Sharpsburg, which some call Antietam. Will winces as the doctor probes his left arm. The uniform had been
cut away and the blood-soiled sleeve tossed in a bin with the other torn and tattered remnants
of uniforms darkened with blood. And in the other corner, there’s a pile of gangrenous
flesh and severed bone. ~~~ It’s a month later in mid to
late November, and Will, now an amputee, is on his way home. A medical discharge. He thinks
out loud so he’ll better remember when he writes his thoughts on paper: I sink as I march through the woods;
wish the ground to swallow me. Musket smoke still hangs in my nostrils. I lift my eyes
to pray, and the air is crisp with sweet pawpaw leaves and syrup-colored maples. I see
a tanager in the pines; hear the oriole’s pure, liquid whistles, rich flute and
piccolo, flutter-drums of passion, and the beating of wings. But
the buzz around those carcasses maggot my thoughts. I
am running now, away from there, away from the cornfields scattered with ears pressed
to the ground; hair silked with blood; bodies husked in gray and blue. I am running away
from the fields littered with death as I feel my own reaper close behind swinging his scythe.
My arm already severed to my shoulder bone; my limb thrown among the other arms and legs
onto piles, only its ghost remains to taunt me. But
today, I am coming home. ~~~ From afar, Will’s mother sees
her son ambling through the fields. She runs to him. With an awkward moment on
how to embrace him with a missing arm, Will throws his one good arm around his
mother. He kisses her gently on the cheek.
“I’ve missed you, Momma.” “I’ve
missed you, too, Will. Been praying for this day; your coming home.”
“Where’s Betty Lynn?” he says,
his eyes growing wide.
“She’s not here... I’m sorry,
Son. She ran off and got married to a banker from Richmond.”
“She what?”
“We’ll talk more later.” “No,
Momma. Tell me now.”
“She left a letter for you. I put it on
the dresser in your room.”
They both go into the house and Will works his
way up the loft to his old room. He sheds his backpack and undresses. He sees the letter,
but doesn’t open it. He just stares at it. It now made sense why he didn’t
receive any more letters from her after the first few months of his enlistment. His side is hurting, so he fishes out some whiskey the doctor had given
him, then lies down for a moment. Trying hard to quell the cacophony of thoughts and assuage
the pain of loss, not just of his arm, he lies down on propped-up pillows, and takes another
swig, and falls into half-stirred dreams. Will mumbles
in his sleep; tosses, and ruffles sheets, writhes, his face distorting in the late afternoon
shadows of that bakery shop commandeered and converted to a hospital in
Shepherdstown, WV just across the Potomac. The narcotic-infused whiskey sloshes
with his delirium. And the cannon roars in the near distance of his nightmare
rattle his sore ribs from when he was thrown hard to the ground from the cannon blast
that shrapnel’d his arm. That laudanum-laced whiskey left a bad taste in his mouth
when they braced him for the saw. There would only be a slight dulling to the excruciation
of amputation. He yells out, “No. No, no!” as the tool razor-toothed into his
flesh. Will awakens to his own screams, beads of
sweat dripping fear all over his face; his shirt drenched. His
mother, startled, comes running, a thin shawl draped over her shoulders. “Will!” “I’m
okay, Momma.” His voice perhaps is not very convincing. “It was just a bad
dream.”
“Let me know if there’s anything
I can do for you, Son.”
“I will.” But even wide awake,
his nightmare continues.
Will sits up at the edge of his bed in the farmhouse
he grew up in trying to lose himself in childhood memories until the sun cracks the darkness.
As he hopes and dreams, he can see a few slants of gold light bleed in, the windowpane
transforming from black to the gray hue of morning, not quite blue. It’s a new day.
It’s Thanksgiving morning and the cock is crowing. Will jumps out of bed, throws
on some clothes, and scurries down to make breakfast with his mother. The letter remains in shadows, unopened. THE END
Elementary Classes by John C. Mannone I was looking for a
bus, train, or a plane to take a picture
of for a basic photography class when a row of buses popped into view as in a photo- shoot for a
magazine cover, glossy in the after rain, gleaming lead-chromate-yellow; parked on asphalt puddles reflecting
the end of the day—fire red sky from
a setting sun; wisps of steamy mist hovering. It’s summer, but some kids won’t be
swimming or
picnicking. But no more bullies, or homework, no more detention, or recess, no more
teachers or
overprotective parents. These children were sadly expelled from their classrooms
because of gunmen-boys who cut them
short, too short to
ever reach the school bus steps again. Now, the
gray-green leather seats remain empty but
for the quiet ghosts of children resting in the liminal shadows. In memory of the children lost
to gun violence at Sandy Hook, Rancho Tehama,
Robb Elementary schools, and many others since Columbine.
Rage by John C. Mannone Wounded, she emptied six slugs into the thug’s chest;
rage stoked his adrenaline
and he continued with resolve,
stumbled closer to her wielding
a long kitchen knife. Lunging
a quick thrust of her thick serrated
blade before she collapsed her stance,
she swung around, kicked and screamed
in a wild rage— a martial
arts maneuver of flying foot to
head, blood spraying, spilling on
the floor. The raucous cries of
the .38 special had awakened her
own adrenaline, pumping. The
momentary silence broken by
a six-year-old’s plaintive sobs, “Is everything alright, Mommy? I heard the noise; I’m
scared.” She hugs
her daughter close to her heart,
whispers in her ear, “Yes,
baby, everything is fine. It
was just the boogieman . . . but
he won’t be coming back. Ever.”
Comfort Zone by
John C. Mannone I’m considered the best, but I
never want to be too comfortable. I want the hairs on the back of my neck to
stand straight out into dry air when it stirs. I want my Polaroid sunglasses to
screen out any glare I might have but I never want to be too comfortable that they’ll
hide the quiver in my eyes. I never want to be so comfortable that I’ll get lost
in the static hiss of my thoughts and cannot hear the whisper of birds, or the soft shuffle
of shoes on a carpet. I never want to be too comfortable that I only taste the wine, and
not the sweat hiding under my shirt; my palms too smooth with confidence. I never want
to be so comfortable that I cannot smell his fear but comfortable enough that he cannot
smell mine before the silenced lead pierces his skull.
John C. Mannone has
poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South,
Baltimore Review, and others. Winner/Nominee of numerous
contests/awards, John edits poetry for Abyss
& Apex and other journals. He’s a retired physics professor living in
Knoxville, Tennessee. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone/
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