Author Archives: John Biscello

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.

Two

Posted on September 7, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Side by side, farmers reigning symmetry in repose– The sky, blue to the taste, with chalky traces of cloud powdering the empty course– Images of the floating world persist in material means and long takes … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged farmers, images of the floating world, japan, niigata, Poetry, river, toyanogaata park, travel | Leave a comment

Flicker

Posted on September 6, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. We are here, but briefly, finite exhales threaded to infinite digressions, nowhere and now here minding a slip of the tongue, a merciful spell of passage shedding lightly to no known ends.

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged cemetery, infinite, japan, life, niigata, poem, the journey, vigil | Leave a comment

Nuptials

Posted on September 6, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Here, a plot of overgrown grass and conjugal motives– A desirously bowing limb decked out in pink and green, caressing the time-darkened stone of one who has passed from now to now-again… The enduring portrait … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged cemetery, grave, japan, love story, nature, niigata, Poetry, tree | Leave a comment

Portal

Posted on September 5, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. A most gorgeous, delicate, tenuous tenor of web, embroidered with translucent beads of morning-cut rain, this the ephemeral lens through which to view a landscape, a scene, quarter-notes of a dream, or dreaming itself pinned … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged cemetery, niigata, poem, Poetry, praise, rain, spirit life, vision, web | Leave a comment

Elegy for the Living

Posted on September 5, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Out of the world’s slow unseen turning, a darkly candid limb photobombs the dead, en route to heaven’s extended mouth of silence– The living, below, crossing gravely their own secret vigils, never witness the lancing … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged cemetery, elegy for the living, graves, growth, japan, niigata, poem, Poetry, tree | 1 Comment

Slow Coffee

Posted on September 3, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. The sign in the window read Slow Coffee and when you went inside and found out the story of the owner an artist and former architect who had a brain stroke he explained that this … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged artist, cafe, coffee, furumachi, japan, niigata, poem, portrait, slow coffee | Leave a comment

Elegy

Posted on September 3, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Time out a cemetery plotted on higher ground overlooking the railroad tracks crisscrossing bouts of traffic houses accounting for lives lived in shuttered flashes the dead amounting to subtlest vigils kept in the way wind … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged cemetery, elegy, ghosts, poem, Poetry, spirit life, the dead, vigil | 1 Comment

Floating World

Posted on August 27, 2023 by John Biscello

Within the hyphenated seizure of rain upon stone, a lyrical wake of kisses threading sky to the earth-sown– Images of the floating world perceive our birth and death, we go on, surviving our ghosts, dissolving into unmembered deeds of light, … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged ephemera, floating world, japan, niigata, poem, portrait, rainy day, sacred, shrine | Leave a comment

Pilgrimage

Posted on August 26, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Rainy Wednesday, visiting Ryokan’s hut— No one there, frog jumped.

Posted in photography, Poetry | Tagged frog, haiku, hut, moss, niigata, photography, pilgrimage, poem, Poetry, Ryokan | Leave a comment

Inlet

Posted on August 25, 2023 by John Biscello

From the series, Japan Poems. Stalking fervently inlaid territories and textures, ribbed intimacies scaling soundly an overture to evolutionary bonds and leaps— lizard, fish, man splashing wildly in pools jazz forming freely in the river’s fast-moving mouth— notes, air, ground … Continue reading →

Posted in Artwork, photography, Poetry | Tagged free form, free jazz, inland fish, japan, japanese jazz, motoharu yoshizawa, music, play on, poem, portrait, vinyl | Leave a comment