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.

Premature Nostalgia

Posted on December 1, 2025 by John Biscello

   Ever since I can remember, I have been afflicted by what I call premature nostalgia. A simple definition of premature nostalgia: Mourning or grieving, or experiencing acutely a deep sense of loss, a profound wistfulness, ether before something happens … Continue reading →

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Paper Route

Posted on December 1, 2025 by John Biscello

   It’s hard when you live in a paper town. You see the other kids, the real ones, playing at the linen edges, the cloth borders, and you want to interact with them but you can’t cross over. There is … Continue reading →

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Daybreak

Posted on November 30, 2025 by John Biscello

We forget vividly. Absence glares and ghosts inwardly, a brutal slate of charged pixels. We find ourselves shrinking and recoiling in the hospitable siege of light—projecting, wanting, myopic as the day is long. We question ourselves. We are changed. How? … Continue reading →

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Where the Sidewalk Ends

Posted on November 30, 2025 by John Biscello

To no longer have memory is to exist in a state of vulnerable grace. It is the tenuous grace of having to function in the immediate present, the source of our greatest agitation, without referential orientation to archived past or … Continue reading →

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Flint

Posted on November 30, 2025 by John Biscello

   I came across what was no longer there, and thought—Burning books isn’t so terrible. What is a far worse fate for books, what really transforms them into grave casualties: apathy.    Indifference and neglect of books is a much … Continue reading →

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Night Gig

Posted on November 30, 2025 by John Biscello

   It is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary that the world can end yet people will go on living. As if they never got the memo: World Over.    Perception is an absurd gambit. You never know what you’ll see and what … Continue reading →

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Girl in the Dark, Twice

Posted on November 28, 2025 by John Biscello

1.    A girl in the dark, in a corner, spitting out sunflower seeds, spitting out sunflower seeds into the dark.    Pppfft-pppfft, the sound her mouth makes when spitting, and the barely audible plip when the shells hit the … Continue reading →

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Causeless

Posted on November 28, 2025 by John Biscello

   We used to be called human, that is, our actions were considered human if we acted with compassion and mercy. Yet we have been killing and maiming and igniting wars since time immemorial … so isn’t that, based on … Continue reading →

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Crossroads

Posted on November 26, 2025 by John Biscello

   To say I am standing outside in the cold, the snowblowy cold, hatless, a gray overcoat—this would be a lie, this would be fabricated—as I am sitting inside, in my warm home, at my desk, trying to convince someone … Continue reading →

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Chelsea Hotel #3

Posted on November 24, 2025 by John Biscello

   We Are Ugly But We Have the Music.    This is our title, our collective moniker, our flagless flag, denominating no allegiances, no cultural attachments, no geo-political persuasions. None of that. We dwell underground, or to be more accurate, … Continue reading →

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