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.

Vigil

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

When I watched my mother brush her hair, it made a scraping electric sound: vibrating plastic teeth sinking repeatedly into a fuzzy animal. I loved watching my mother brush her hair. I’d make sure to always stand behind her, so … Continue reading →

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Mayday

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

My mother’s grief attends nightly to her bones. It is a funeral in reverse, or a funeral in slow-motion, longing for a mourning long delayed. We stall ourselves in grief—idling, passive—and the freest parts become small dark birds tearing away … Continue reading →

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Knives

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

   My sister says she doesn’t have many memories from childhood. When she looks back, there’s nothing there: a blank screen. I never asked her if she saw black or white in her absence of memories.    One of her … Continue reading →

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Dinner, No Voices

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

   I waited. We waited. A storm was coming. It had to be. He had returned from rehab several days earlier, after having been gone for two months. My father had always born pouchy bags under his eyes, but there, … Continue reading →

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Teatro Paraguas

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

Thank you to Teatro Paraguas for being such a gracious host, and to the people who attended and supported the reading and book-signing in Santa Fe. It was a sweet, humanly connected, word-warmed evening.

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Mortuary

Posted on November 14, 2025 by John Biscello

Miko was a singer with her voice in the clouds. They called Miko blue. Occasionally, there would be flashes of red. In the fall, Miko would softly mimic the elegy of leaves and become yellow. She would, in voice and … Continue reading →

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Operating Theater

Posted on November 13, 2025 by John Biscello

   I have become moonless in my grief, a paled comparison. But to what? To who I used to be? What I expected to become? I feel as if I’ve been laid out on an operating table, and Time, as … Continue reading →

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Empire Strikes Back

Posted on November 13, 2025 by John Biscello

   Her hips began the snake-dance, the spasmodic wiggle. She told me to listen closely, and her hips began hissing a slow cadence, the world losing its air, the world a depleted lunar asthmatic in need of oxygen blasts. My … Continue reading →

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That Thing With Feathers

Posted on November 13, 2025 by John Biscello

   As she moved her bladed hips beneath him, small dark starshaped birds tore out of her hips, scissoring the air, and were then immediately sucked back into her hips, as if by an invisible vacuum.    He stopped, and … Continue reading →

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Pirate Radio

Posted on November 13, 2025 by John Biscello

   Hips don’t lie. They are the truth-telling giants and the whistle-blowers transmitting through pirate radio. They are also the catacombs and weather satellites of one’s cumulative genealogy. When an old person falls and breaks their hip, it is not … Continue reading →

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