Category Archives: Poetry

Best Indie Gems Hidden in Plain Sight

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

A mini-review list compiled for and published on Shepherd: https://shepherd.com/best-books/indie-gems-hidden-in-plain-sight  

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Domain

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

   Samuel Beckett tried to corral silence by making silence the domain of language. To not say anything, to ultimately embrace silence, would have meant an impossible task—setting down the pen, laying to rest the voice—and placing a moratorium on … Continue reading →

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Plot

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

   Yesterday I buried my mother. Two mothers. Maybe three, or four. I have had many mothers in the small hours of this modest and shrinking life. All my mothers are tassels of foam threading mighty surf. All my mothers … Continue reading →

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Winter

Posted on November 17, 2025 by John Biscello

   I say my mother’s grief was white on white … I say this, but this is not true all the time. The colors change. My mother’s grief has been pink, blue, red. Yet, more and more, when I am … Continue reading →

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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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