Author Archives: John Biscello

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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.

Frost

Posted on September 30, 2019 by John Biscello

There is a specific tenor to dreaming in a silent and snowy land. It’s that place where your voice grows brighter, then brittle and glassy, before shattering into a choir of a thousand birds, and everywhere the echoes attempt to … Continue reading →

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Ghosts

Posted on September 29, 2019 by John Biscello

It began in a feral and unnamed country, which was the nerve-center of dreaming. Telephones wires hanging down like snipped umbilicals, like severed hyphens that had lost all sense of meaning and purpose. The telephone poles doubled as crucifixes. You … Continue reading →

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Visitation Rites

Posted on September 27, 2019 by John Biscello

There is no separation, she said. That is such an illusion, the longest-running con-job this side of the moon. Do not believe the shit that comes out of the pipelines of splintered masses. (She knocked on my forehead three times, … Continue reading →

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The Gospel According to John

Posted on September 26, 2019 by John Biscello

“You’ve got to look at old things and see them in a new light.” Bound, as a parishioner to ancient-newness and freeform alchemy, these words issued from the worn, trembling lips of a man called Coltrane, who, with steady bough … Continue reading →

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After Hours

Posted on September 18, 2019 by John Biscello

   Lenny Bruce, seated on a chipped wooden stool, cigarette dangling from his lips, slumping forward, shoulders slack. His mouth puckers, the cigarette jumps to attention, he draws in fiercely, then exhales a series of bluish halos that float and … Continue reading →

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Raising the Bar

Posted on September 18, 2019 by John Biscello

   Dylan Thomas falls off his barstool in Heaven.    Lying on the sawdusty floor, he slurs something about a white horse. And chains, and the sea.    God, who gave Lucifer the night off, is tending bar. He comes … Continue reading →

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Rhyme-Scheme

Posted on September 18, 2019 by John Biscello

There is nothing to order or arrange, nothing to worry about. No explanations required. Dry logic and tortured rationale can be set aside. At least for a little while. Try it. You see, everything rhymes in this letterless alphabet of … Continue reading →

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Cask

Posted on September 17, 2019 by John Biscello

We are here to marvel, and to grieve, to haunt the liminal edges which find us supremely fragile in our longing.

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Surrealism in Paris

Posted on September 9, 2019 by John Biscello

Review of Sue Roe’s In Montparnasse: The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dali A fish rides a bicycle into the Seine. The fish begins to drown and then remembers that it is a fish and starts to … Continue reading →

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The Cup Runneth Over

Posted on September 2, 2019 by John Biscello

This is a tribute to a coffeeshop, a paean and a love-letter to a place that exists as a staple and sanctuary in the Taos community. By turns, this is also a tribute to the man who owned that coffee … Continue reading →

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