The Fissure King

It was only now,
after the split
had occurred,
that his exact words
returned to the surface—
I am in love
with the aesthetics
of your sorrow—
and this makes you wonder
how much of you he saw,
how much of you he missed,
and more importantly,
where the hell were you
during this joint crisis
of perception?

#56 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman
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Shadow Play

Some shadows
become women
when no one
is looking.
Consider it
the residual alchemy
of fallout
and mortal longing.

#55 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman
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In the Still of the Night

Bare white knuckles
grazed
her nightbitten lobe
as she turned
up her collar
to the cold
and was seized
with a grave sense
of how lonely she had been
and how much further
she had to go
to grieve the bated loss
of person or persons
unknown.

#54 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

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Arson & Grace: Collected Plays

I am happy to announce that a collection of my plays is scheduled for publication with CSF Publishing. The collection, which is titled Arson & Grace, will feature eight of my plays, all of which have enjoyed a production life here in Taos, New Mexico. 

The plays featured in the collection are: LOBSTERS ON ICE, ADAGIO FOR STRAYS, ZEITGEIST, U.S.A., NURSERY BONES, WHEN IN ROME, PAN, THE BEST MEDICINE, and, WEREWOLVES DON’T WALTZ. 
Listed below is a blurb for the collection. And several images from productions past. More news coming when a publication date is scheduled. 

ARSON & GRACE: Think of the book you are now holding in your hands as a black-market passport to a realm of lucid dreams and savage jest. Or as the splintered signpost to a crossroads where pop culture, mythology and surrealism intersect. Spanning a thirteen-year-period (2003-2016), Arson & Grace comprises eight plays written by John Biscello. In a world, which is warped sibling to ours, and reflected back to us through funhouse mirrors, you will find love, death, madness and family dysfunction given fresh theatrical makeovers, while meeting a motley assortment of characters straddling the blurred lines between reality and illusion. From penile-enlarged patriarchy to airports where babies are confiscated to werewolves who don’t waltz, the spirit of commedia dell’arte and “zanni,” is alive and well in the Wonderland playscapes of Biscello. Abandon reason all ye who enter here—and trespass lightly.  

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Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Illuminated,
but with razors,
the shadow found a face
to give its cinematic debut
a twist on types fitted
to escape plans
in small, forgotten rooms.

#53 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman
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Unmade

Rumpled, with a sense of grave toil,
and casual slips of crucial error–
Was this what love meant,
or did? Could that be all?
The woman settled
into the shape of her day,
and pined for something remote
and unspecified,
a feeling, a place, anything
to keep her unmade and hoping.

#51 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

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Semblance

It is like
having a piece
of hard existential candy
lodged in your larynx
while all around you
voices demand
the strictest means
of geometry
by which to constellate
your semblance.

#51 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

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Prop List

It had become a question of values,
and proper arrangement.
She had burned with a nightly longing
to know
the deathly stillness
of essential props,
as if life
was in the market
for high-end
interior models
to place first.

#50 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

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Through A Glass Darkly

She paused, to reflect
upon how, in this house,
there would never be a shortage of glasses,
they’d never run out.
Forever, the company
of herself, abolished in the throes
of forgetting.

#49 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman

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Twilight Zone

The waiting
wasn’t anything new.
It was the open spaces,
the promise of breathing room,
which was eerily unfamiliar.
She catalogued
what she had packed,
and what she had left behind,.
while assuming the burden of distance
to match the dimming caliber of twilight.

#48 from Untitled Film Poems
Image by Cindy Sherman
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