Category Archives: Poetry

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

This Side of Arson

Posted on November 12, 2020 by John Biscello

It is an emptying-out, a daily maintenance of purge which, in its favored form, testifies to the lore of secrets held within revelations, or, delineates just cause for an arsonist’s burning.

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Bones and the Blue

Posted on November 11, 2020 by John Biscello

“I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and future—the timelessness of the rocks and the hills—all the people who have existed there.  I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment