By LindaAnn LoSchiavo
Young Jack the Ripper
As mother gripped his clammy hand, they watched the gallows, a theatrical spectacle, every curious head angled up. A mesmerizing noose, hiss of final gasps of air, the thrilling power over life and death planting its infernal obsession.
As mother gripped his clammy hand, they watched the gallows, a theatrical spectacle, every curious head angled up. A mesmerizing noose, hiss of final gasps of air, the thrilling power over life and death planting its infernal obsession.
Shadows he wore like a second skin as he outgrew knickers and practiced how to escape detection. Darkness at his back, fantasies bloomed like bloody roses, growing so large his knuckles tensed. His mind was becoming a cul-de-sac for forbidden passions.
Slapping the back of his head when chores have gone undone, his mother scolds that he daydreams too much. An indulgent smirk mollifies her. It’s his phantom mask, firmly held in place. Because women are susceptible to a sleepy-eyed boyish grin, caught off guard. Caught. Off. Guard.
Invisible Visitors
Another dead end. Expensive mistake. Cindered utterances. Blah-blah-blah. Fade in on a lost cause retreat to the outskirts of a rundown neighborhood where everyone’s a stranger. A shuttered house that’s affordable: a handyman’s special, tilting slightly like the crooked teeth of temptation, its better days (like yours) far behind. The real estate agent tight-lipped, eyes sweeping the rooms like a summoning. How could you guess that its benighted history would infiltrate the air like a coal-coughing chimney to sicken the unsuspecting? A ceaseless sentience segments the hours, thickening as the noose of night tightens up, iron window grates exhaling carceral gloom. Occasionally, a thump of phantom movements echoes. Might it be rodents? A gelid tap startles but infrequent enough so you might be mistaken. Insomnia strikes, fanning away your energy. Prescriptions lead your nighttime self into an almost obliterating dark where faces have no pigment. Like smoke, ghostly presences envelope you, suffocating serenity. One night woolen drapes assume a human form and you rise from bed, shaking them open with ruthless efficiency in a speckled swath of moonlight just as a murder of crows scythes across white gasping clouds. A hastily lit cigarette strokes nervous throat muscles with its god-sized thumb until its tip resembles ash, dumbfounded ash.
Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. Member: BFS, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild.
In 2024 LindaAnn LoSchiavo had three poetry books published in 3 different countries; two titles won multiple awards.
In 2025 two titles are forthcoming: “Cancer Courts My Mother” and “Vampire Verses.”
In 2024 LindaAnn LoSchiavo had three poetry books published in 3 different countries; two titles won multiple awards.
In 2025 two titles are forthcoming: “Cancer Courts My Mother” and “Vampire Verses.”
