Monthly Archives: November 2020

A Thousand Women

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“I am not indifferent to the greater dramas hanging over us, but drama is everywhere the same, microcosm or macrocosm. It is not my destiny to live the drama of Spain, war, death, agony, hunger. It is my destiny to … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Toy Story

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“Tedium . . . it’s perhaps, after all, the dissatisfaction of the intimate soul because we haven’t given it a belief, the desolation of the sad child we are deep down, because we haven’t bought him a divine toy.” – … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

American Alley

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“What absurdity.  There is not one novel of America.  There are a thousand Americas. Big Business is only one of its inhuman, monstrous products.  But jazz is the expression of America’s romantic self, its sensual potency, its lyrical force. Big … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Them Blues

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“… the blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged train and transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Walkabout

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“My whole life has been little else than a long reverie divided into chapters by my daily walks”–Jean-Jacques Rousseau To ground, daily, these dreams of novel origins, bracing bold contact with rounded edges, off which falling is favored and soundly … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tall Black Armchair, or, Anais Nin Revisited

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair.  I will be the one woman you will never have … excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Storm Front

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“I think we are climates above which pause threats of storms that take place elsewhere.”—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet What then, this weather of strange balloons and vanities engorged like blowfish bladders purpling to the point of bursting? Who, … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chekhov and the Cat

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“The longer a poem, the weaker the impression that it has been dictated from above: Heaven is not verbose.  The more you talk, the more you lie.”–Vera Pavlova When I am overly verbose, I am trying to convince myself, or … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wistful

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

“It was back into the mind of the young man with cardboard soles who had walked the streets of New York.  I was him again—for an instant I had the good fortune to share his dreams, I who had no … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cracked Plate

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

“Sometimes, though, the cracked plate has to be retained in the pantry, has to be kept in service as a household necessity.  It can never again be warmed on the stove nor shuffled with the other plates in the dishpan; … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment