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.

Bone Jig

My mother’s bones. My mother’s bones resounding in my ears piercing my eardrums. Death rattle of the dusty gourd. Of the earth’s grief calling to us to restore. Calling upon us to become wardens attendants to vibrations crossing passages. To … Continue reading →

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To No End

Texts to be read aloud inside your head while no one is listening. This one of the directives we received. We also heard Your ears may start to burn as if a forest fire is burning inside your head a … Continue reading →

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All Fours

We are out here on all fours panting in the sun the bleary merciless maraschino sun burning us. It has been a long while one of those spells that feels foreverish out here in these fields unseen dreaming of god … Continue reading →

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Lasting Born

Once upon a time is a necessary mirage. Flesh born of lighted word and bones fulfilling myth. Stories are the means to endlessness. They go on and on. We go on and on carried along by stories carrying within them … Continue reading →

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Children of the Moon

We the motherless fatherless children of the moon wake up dreamless weeping. This is why we seek the all dreaming. The all dreaming is more feeling than place. Sometimes not always but sometimes we are chased by the fates. The … Continue reading →

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Keeper of Bones

Now again I have become my mother’s keeper. Once I saw her sitting out in the yard staring out blankly and when I asked her what she was doing she said she was taking care of the world. She said … Continue reading →

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Shadow Work

When the girl was young she would practice spells, she would recite things she made up, verses of nonsense and babble born from the foam that would slather the edges of her mouth when imagining words, all this done to … Continue reading →

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Cherry

Claudia made herself into Cherry and went to the strip club just because. Green eye shadow. Black eyeliner. Red lipstick. A face painted to imitate the likeness of another face, a wanting face, a grave tablature, a motherland face veiling … Continue reading →

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Mothlight

It happens like that. Slow baked, sudden bubbling, no cauldron, face up in the vortex. You become days of mourning. A pall, a viscous grayish veil. You can no longer see clearly or purely. Vision pales, angel eyes gone. You … Continue reading →

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Scratch

Once upon a time before people were monsters. When people didn’t eat each other. Out here we’ve got to be careful. I defected. I became fugitive singular. I defected from plural, from we. I defected so as to claim I … Continue reading →

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