The Memphis Nightclub Murders & Other Poetic Mysteries

By D.C. Quillan Stone

The Memphis Nightclub Murders & Other Poetic Mysteries is a collection of short stories in poetic form remotely based on legends, folklore, history, and serial crimes, elaborated and expanded into uniquely fictitious accounts. The collection features a trilogy of murder mysteries set in Memphis, Tennessee, of late 1950s.

Rhymes on Rye No. 132
As bawdy the crass sax, or perhaps paramours brass sex
Words form then stack, betwixt thighs impasse vexed
He her rex and she his text, the poets verse un-tersely
Pretzeling below the canopys white lace so transversely

Whiskey arouses souls, like bloody tattoos incite flesh
By ills in thrills enmeshed, as chaff-n-wheat pre-threshed
So are facts killed, else skewed, by inebriations effects
Too wrecked to judge, to deflect nudges then neglects

Silk lilts then saunters, off back, over left shoulder
Batoned by airy symphony, while moods wax bolder
Crooning from gulf to bluffs, along hips neath slip
Lips to flesh, sips of sweat, enmeshing in odic scripts

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532016752

D.C. Quillan Stone

Poet/Writer/Blogger ... Californian native however 26+ years in northwest Mississippi near Memphis TN metro ... 9 books of poetry; collections, poetic novel/epic, poetic short stories or mysteries ... 10th and 11th books, philosophy/ethics, 12th book, continuation of the same philosophy/ethics, entitled More Proems & Poems on the Peculiar Human ABILITY to REASON, Singular Human RIGHT to CONSENT & Other Neglected Matters ... Homepage - www.DCQuillanStone.com ... Blogs - www.CafePerQ.com

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Copyright © 2017 D.C. Quillan Stone.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1676-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1681-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1675-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901727

iUniverse rev. date: 02/16/2017

Contents

The Memphis Nightclub Murders - Part 1

Note:

Roughly based on a New Orleans serial killer of early 20th century, thus the fictionalized 1957 murders at various Memphis nightclubs, from the files of Detective Boldren, Edward Q. (main character).

Prologue    ’Round Downtown

Act I    Ides of Rye’s Démarche

Act II   Midtown Madly

Act III    Depth `Low Gravedigger’s Dune

Act IV   Lust Smirks, When Love Shirks

Act V    Otis’ Magnum Opus

Epilogue   A Thin Precarious Trave

The Memphis Nightclub Murders - Part 2

Prologue    Towards Death’s Rim

Act I    Rued by Streetlights at Neon Twilight

Act II    A Multum-In-Parvo Killing

Intermission    Mannequins’ Silhouettes and Reflections

Act III    Felines Covert, Canines Overt

Act IV    Presupposition De Force

Epilogue    Shots of Solace

The Memphis Nightclub Murders - Part 3

Prologue    Two Eggs Fried and Cheap Rye

Act I    Prudhomme’s Diner

Act II    Gash Bequeathed by Gnashed Teeth

Intermission    Time After Time After Fuckin’ Time

Act III    Lost To Indifference

Act IV    Vacancy at Journey Motor Court

Epilogue    Betoken and To None Beholden

Mississippi Witch Dance and Harpe’s Mislaid Head

Note:

Poetic mystery fictionally weaved by aroused interests in the Witch Dance folklore along Natchez Trace in Mississippi, as well the 18th century highwaymen and serial-killers, the Harpe Brothers. Also, though my ancestor by name and era, the character Roland Stone is not intended as biographical.

Introduction    Preceding Late Summer of 1799

Prologue    Dead Stag Tavern

Act I    MacKean’s Odd Ways and Means

Act II    Prone to Roam for Buried Bones

Act III    Mother of Wolves

Act IV    Cache of Coins and Crown

Act V    Band of Witches and Daggers Grand

Epilogue    Return to Dead Stag Tavern

Circle of Stone Oaks

Note:

Poetic mystery fabricated elaborately (upon much ale and rye) in reference to the Biblical scripture in Genesis 6:2,4, combined with ancient Irish folklore.

Prologue    Misty’s Pub of Ole Dungarvan

Act I    Antediluvian Anecdote

Act II    Uneven Spawns of Seven Dawns

Act III    Three Sons of Riphath

Act IV    Fletcher and Fledgling

Act V    Strange Trees With Stranger Gables

Act VI    Bradán’s Remonstrance

Act VII    A Hundred Spears, A Hundred Sneers

Act VIII    Ádhamh the Intercessor

Act IX    The Intercession

Epilogue    Pitched Myth, Foreboding Truth

Gnomes of Güemes

Note:

Poetic mystery remotely based on a particular alleged sightings of a gnome in the province of Salta, Argentina.

Prologue    Like Leprous Refuse

Act I    Bitter Boon of Runes

Act II    Eventide Mist

Act III    Shadows and Little Feet

Act IV    Pained, Slain, and Minikin

Act V    On Consanguineous Loam

Epilogue    Rare Chortle and Tune

Bacchanal Aroma on Via Roma del Mare

Note:

Poetic mystery inspired by an obscure Sicilian legend accounting a group of women who frantically pursued a man to the sea where they collectively and unexplainably drowned hand in hand.

Prologue    To Kill Withal Thrill

Act I    Flames Stoked and Fanned

Act II    Fits Anew, Sweat as Dew

Intermezzo    Mind of Soul

Act III    A Hundred Hungry Hands

Act IV    Flight of the Troubadour

Epilogue    His Final Odic Breath

Mysteries as Love’s Epistles

Note:

A poem written as a well needed diversion amid writing the poetic mysteries.

Rhymes on Rye No. 1-32

Note:

Just a convenient consolidation of the same rhymes scattered throughout the trilogy The Memphis Nightclub Murders.

With much love and pride sincerely and always, to Roxanne, Jessie, Aly, Mike, Kyle, Wade, Eli, Parker, Jude, Lamar, Payton, Andi, Keller, and those yet to come, for always wonderfully and contemplatively stirring to one’s long-wandering soul is each newly acquired and embraced life in a family.

And given the trilogy’s references, appropriately to Mr. Michter (regularly), Mr. Bulleit (first met in his youth, then 10 years later), Mr. Blanton (always welcomed), Mr. Templeton, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Hayden, Mr. Taylor, and other good natured gentlemen, whose minted soliloquies offer a cool diversion to the poetic chaos then coitus `tween thought conceived in mind hazed and verse consummated on paper raised.

Finally to Peace, always a choice.

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www.DCQuillanStone.com

Poetry is passion … Poetry is power!

~ Other Books by D.C. Quillan Stone ~

Epistola

December 2001

Epistola II - Forever Dance Naked

October 2003

Epistola III - Soul Wanderings

September 2005

Commentaries by an American Poet

December 2006

Passionate Lucidity

March 2009

Midland

November 2011

The Third Fall of Race Brook

Arpil 2015

[-brief-]

April 2015

The Memphis Nightclub Murders

From the Files of Detective Boldren, Edward Q.

~ A Poetic Mystery - Part 1 ~

Prologue

~ ’Round Downtown ~

3 January 1957, 11:42 PM

There inclined, normally sublime, albeit post-yule eve

Upon table he cleaved, thus un-eased by love thieved

Between dancers paltry, modern psalteries of horns

And whisperings of forever as paramours oft sworn

Per cigarette pouts, martini slurs o’er high-heel stirs

Seasoned terse withal usual curse, recited liken verse

Mid cornet and saxophone blown, notes so moaned

Heaving as bosom-tones, ear-suckled by hungry souls

Tolling alone on napkins by inner-ink, each scrolled

Woes retold, night after night, at club Neon Twilight

Rued by streetlights and alleys blue, ’round downtown

Act I

~ Ides of Rye’s Démarche ~

4 January 1957, 3:15 AM

Warm, moments before, instead in head one hole more

By a stiletto’s thin bore, dead for some score presumed

Gazes assumed, peering less, veering from her dress

Then to sparkly largess, upon neck slender, as rendered

Finessed not, due to blood’s mess, from breasts to pleats

Whiskey neat, and another, a final feat, his last order

Mid rousing jazz number and solos by band’s drummer

His damned slumber, unnoticed per nightclub’s modus

And crowd’s operandi, slowed or seethed to each tune

From first watch of eve, to third swoon of early morn

Second tonight, as one warned, plainclothes adorned

Overcoat fashionably forlorn, hat grayed and made low

By bent of brim, o’er eyes’ dent of him, rode per amble

Without mindless gambol, both pupils steely and sable

As all gawked and rambled, Boldren stood beholden

Posture aloof, stolid, lacking proof for a killer’s squalid

Hence man pallid on floor, his woman sullied