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.

Them Blues

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“… the blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged train and transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from … Continue reading →

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Walkabout

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“My whole life has been little else than a long reverie divided into chapters by my daily walks”–Jean-Jacques Rousseau To ground, daily, these dreams of novel origins, bracing bold contact with rounded edges, off which falling is favored and soundly … Continue reading →

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Tall Black Armchair, or, Anais Nin Revisited

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair.  I will be the one woman you will never have … excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the … Continue reading →

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Storm Front

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“I think we are climates above which pause threats of storms that take place elsewhere.”—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet What then, this weather of strange balloons and vanities engorged like blowfish bladders purpling to the point of bursting? Who, … Continue reading →

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Chekhov and the Cat

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“The longer a poem, the weaker the impression that it has been dictated from above: Heaven is not verbose.  The more you talk, the more you lie.”–Vera Pavlova When I am overly verbose, I am trying to convince myself, or … Continue reading →

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Wistful

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

“It was back into the mind of the young man with cardboard soles who had walked the streets of New York.  I was him again—for an instant I had the good fortune to share his dreams, I who had no … Continue reading →

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Cracked Plate

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

“Sometimes, though, the cracked plate has to be retained in the pantry, has to be kept in service as a household necessity.  It can never again be warmed on the stove nor shuffled with the other plates in the dishpan; … Continue reading →

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All That Jazz

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

“Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth.  Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that … Continue reading →

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Reap

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

By the light of the autumn moon, she became, as always, a legend true to her own scythe and reaping.

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Tale-Spin

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

There’s something funny, and a little lonely, about being the idiot protagonist in the tales you endlessly narrate to yourself, as if you were somehow plagiarizing the stars to round out your silence with immaterial gains amounting to destiny, if … Continue reading →

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