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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.
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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