Torch Song

Some women

waited for men

to light their cigarettes

for them

but never her—

she, the one who netted

her own desire,

and blatantly committed

a most lovely heresy

by balancing

a small piece of the moon

on her fingertips

until her cigarette

torched

and underscored

the legend of the woman

scorned as a witch

by men

who didn’t know what to make

of unclaimed fire.

#32 from Untitled Film Poems

Image by Cindy Sherman

About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, writer, poet, performer, and playwright, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of four novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, and No Man’s Brooklyn; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His produced, full-length plays include: LOBSTERS ON ICE, ADAGIO FOR STRAYS, THE BEST MEDICINE, ZEITGEIST, U.S.A., and WEREWOLVES DON’T WALTZ.
This entry was posted in Artwork, Cinema, photography, Poetry and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Torch Song

  1. Geri Lawhon says:

    This is really a great poem. Thanks for posting it.

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s