Percussive Voices, by John C. Mannone

The Upsetters: King and Queen, by Zak Ové (UK). 2013. Click image for artist site.

Percussive Voices

A Moko Jumbie caricature finds its way
into a sculpture of found stuff from garage
sales (or from a foreclosed RadioShack
whose workers also wore masks of artificial
smiles).

The totems leaned up against the museum
wall—assemblage of speakers (bass, treble
and midrange); equalizers and power amps;
turntables and microphones—the personages
expressive as if they had something to say
despite no passerby’s desire to hear it.

But inside their stillness, their unheard
sound waves pulsed from their bodies, hearts
resounded in the silence, at least I could feel
the resonance of heartbeats of djembe drums,
their quiet medicine. I sensed the healing--
one for the black man, the other for the white.

John C. Mannone
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John C. Mannone has work in Artemis, Poetry South, Blue Fifth Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, Pirene's Fountain, and others. He’s a Jean Ritchie Fellowship winner in Appalachian literature (2017) and served as Celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He has three poetry collections, including Flux Lines (Celtic Cat Publishing) forthcoming in 2018. He’s been nominated for Pushcart, Rhysling, and Best of the Net awards. He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade, and Liquid Imagination. He’s a professor of physics near Knoxville, TN. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com
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