Category Archives: Prose

Recording Live

Posted on January 19, 2018 by John Biscello

   I understand that I am not only with my father and grandfather and Marie as family, but also as a writer. I am sketching them. The mechanical hand in my mind that never stops is charting and sketching and … Continue reading →

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Atlantic City

Posted on January 19, 2018 by John Biscello

   We check into the Trop, where my grandfather and his wife are also staying. My father calls my grandfather and we make plans to meet for dinner at 5 at one of the restaurants. When he gets off the … Continue reading →

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Disability

Posted on January 18, 2018 by John Biscello

Receiving disability was another gold ticket ambition of many of the men in my neighborhood. Years ago, my father had lucked into this fortune by hurting his back while working and had been able to parlay that into a ceaseless … Continue reading →

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Reckoning

Posted on January 17, 2018 by John Biscello

I realized that there may never come a reckoning that equated to a clean or true do-over. And what was it I wanted to break from? Was it the past, was it a worn and outdated mode of self that … Continue reading →

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Grandmother

Posted on January 15, 2018 by John Biscello

   She was short, a spud of a woman, who in the summer looked like an overbaked potato.    Her hair was a mushroom-cap, a helmet-poof petrified by copious amounts of Aqua Net hairspray. My grandmother was sweet, exceptionally sensitive, … Continue reading →

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Feelism

Posted on January 15, 2018 by John Biscello

Feelism: emotional subjectivity filtered through the prism of Memory; story-seeds rooted in sensual Nostalgia. In my book, this is what happened has always taken a backseat to this is how it felt.

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Slant

Posted on January 15, 2018 by John Biscello

Emily Dickinson advised that we “tell it slant.” This makes sense. Telling it slant is a natural outgrowth of living it slant. Oblique paths and slanted paths dominate my sense of inner geography. Dylan Thomas wrote: “The memories of childhood … Continue reading →

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Flea Bitten

Posted on January 9, 2018 by John Biscello

Greyhound: A sleek, streamlined, swift-as-the-wind breed of dog. A coughing, sputtering, wheezing, smoke-blowing mutt, prone to flea infestation.    I spent a great deal of my twenties canned inside the dank sweaty armpit of travel Americana: Greyhound.  It was an … Continue reading →

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Saturday Night Russian

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

   It was Jake who first called Anya the Saturday Night Russian. It started when Anya was twelve. Up until that point her wardrobe had been pretty subdued, pretty ordinary. Jeans or capris, T-shirts, sandals or sneakers. Then, seemingly overnight, … Continue reading →

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Digging in the Dirt

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

   The episode played and we laughed at the scenes and punchlines we had seen and heard at least a hundred times. Our laughter was tracked on a loop, because no matter how many times we saw it, always Ralph … Continue reading →

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