Out of the Woods. By John C. Mannone

The young poet with a three-day growth stubbling his face, walks into a Stop-N-Go down the street from his bungalow. His bloodshot eyes don’t help much as he rummages the grocery shelves, but he finally finds what he came for—a packet of Goody’s headache powder…and some grapefruit juice. It had been a long night, actually several long nights, and the whiskey didn’t seem to be working for him—the inspiration never came. He curses out loud and mumbles something to the clerk about Poe, that the whiskey didn’t work for him either. The alcohol doesn’t assuage his guilt.

Maybe it’s the booze talking, but he starts second-guessing himself. He’s about to graduate from an MFA program at the college down the street. But one thing is certain, he didn’t learn how to write under pressure. The manuscript is due in just a few more days, and only a handful of poems etch the pages.

Back at the apartment, he slumps on the sofa, downs the hangover remedy dispersed in a glass of water, and closes his eyes for a moment. When his head stops throbbing, he prays to dissuade despair’s grip. When he opens his eyes—the room no longer with that spin he experienced the night before—he simply stares out the backyard window. A nut brown warbler skittering on the gray pine rail, stops and cocks its head this way and that, then chirps matter-of-factly right at the poet. It’s as if it speaks a language he understands. He knows now what to do. The poet eases himself off the couch, kicks aside the crumpled pieces of paper littering the floor, and sits down at his desk while pushing aside the whiskey bottle. With new composure, he opens a fresh notebook. Ink fills the pages as he writes down all the secrets of the woods.

John C. Mannone has poems accepted in North Dakota Quarterly, the 2020 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, Foreign Literary Review, The Menteur, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. His won the Impressions of Appalachia Creative Arts Contest in poetry (2020) and the Carol Oen Memorial Fiction Prize (2020). He was awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His latest collection, Flux Lines: The Intersection of Science, Love, and Poetry, is forthcoming from Linnet’s Wings Press (2020). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. A retired physics professor, he lives near Knoxville, Tennessee. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com