Author Archives: John Biscello

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About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, novelist, poet, performer, playwright and filmmaker, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of six novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, No Man’s Brooklyn, The Last Furies, and No One Dreams in Color; 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 plays have been staged and performed both nationally and internationally.

Outerwear

Posted on October 8, 2026 by John Biscello

The dark is the clothing in which our ghosts animate themselves.

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Paper Cuts

Posted on October 8, 2026 by John Biscello

 In the preferred company of words, a slow monarchy and infirmary is formed. Words paper over silence and wounds. Something about the dark blesses us.

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Neurodivergent Rabbits

Posted on October 8, 2026 by John Biscello

There’s no one left to finger, no one left to blame. Someone sang that. I wish I had sung that. I didn’t. I echo. I am echoes proliferating like genetically disturbed rabbits. Maybe neurodivergent rabbits copulating is a better term, … Continue reading →

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Sound of Silence

Posted on October 8, 2026 by John Biscello

In Federico Fellini’s film, 8 ½, the protagonist, Guido Anselmo, the cinematic avatar of Fellini, says—I have nothing to say, yet I am determined to say it. We mime silence by kissing words on the mouth.

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Whistle Stop

Posted on October 8, 2026 by John Biscello

It is a lonely road. The road made of words. The word stay put. The feelings don’t. The words crystallize, become the flambeed edges of something soft in the center. It is a struggle within, and a turn-on, mud-wrestling false … Continue reading →

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Seasons of the Mask

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Biscello

The mask lifted. Autumn lisped. Lost, and lisping about a mausoleum of hours, days. It was a dry Marienbaddish summer. Which gave way to fall. You have to imagine it giving way: Summer, holding up its illustrious red velvet cape, … Continue reading →

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Dreamer’s Cheat Code

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Biscello

A. I sit down at my desk and wonder about placeless places, non-specific locations, the Dreamer dreaming me … it is a way to pass the time. If time were passing, could be passed, over or under, this would be … Continue reading →

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Ineffably Yours

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Biscello

There’s something seductive about a poem lending itself to the ineffable. Ineffable as in the fathomless and mysterious. Ineffable as in unfuckable. You could say the fathomless is unfuckable. Yet the cosmos is shapely and noir, so I succumb to … Continue reading →

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Stitch

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Biscello

You are but a thought a stitch in a dream the interstice between breaths Okay, then, if I accept and embrace my interstitial stitchiness, then why this consuming need and hunger to discover who’s dreaming me? Why can’t I just … Continue reading →

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Melodramatic Reel

Posted on October 7, 2026 by John Biscello

Let’s start with the photo, the comic melodrama in which you, perfectly staged, are wearing a blue pinafore dress, your dark hair gagged in pigtails, mouth heavily lipsticked, cheeks cherubically rouged, your eyes two flashing ovals of abyss-pooling licorice, sweat … Continue reading →

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