John Biscello

Gusty Winds May Exist. This was the sign I saw on the highway when driving back from Albuquerque. Gusty Winds May Exist. Which, speculatively insinuates, they may also not exist. A climate conundrum and barometric riddle to challenge everything you thought you knew about wind, particularly wind which falls under the classification of “gusty.” Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, Santa Claus, gusty winds–all these potentialties straddling the line between reality and illusion, what is and what isn’t, make my brain bust into a happy breakdance. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Marvelous words from M.C. Willy Shakes, who may or may not himself have existed.

Anyways, to hop-skip over to someone who has masterfully exceled at being there/not being there at the same time: Miss Cindy Sherman. I recently fell under the spell of her Untitled Film Stills, my crush on this body of work was instant and deep and moved me to no end. It was a magnetic resonance which demanded my honoring of and partcipation in that “world,” and so I wrote a series of poems, sixty-six in all, corresponding to Miss Sherman’s stills, what I’m tentatively calling Untitled Film Poems. To publish them without the accompanying images would feel diminished, and yet securing the rights to publishing them with the images may prove very difficult. That being said, I’m trying to get the work into Miss Sherman’s hands (though, she, the woman of a thousand faces backlit by a guarded anonymity), which will require a small miracle of its own (but I do believe in miracles, I do, I do!).

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