John Biscello

Dark

Posted on December 16, 2017 by John Biscello

I. I have begun to name and catalogue the different types of dark.

It helps.

Warm-dark, cave-dark, void-dark, womb-dark, sleep-dark,

Eros-dark, blank-dark, siege-dark,

and there is the anonymous dark that gets in your head

and behind your eyes and in your lungs and constricts your breathing;

curse-dark, which casts a heavy prolonged spell, a pall;

there is also lonely. Naming it doesn’t help, not in the same way.

II. Gnashing, teething, bristling, ranting, raving—

all, in this momentary wreck, becomes black with tumult.

It is the dark I forgot to name.

Posted in Artwork, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged Artwork, black, black painting, boxes, Cy Twombly, dark, John Biscello, painting, poem, Poetry | 2 Comments

Dance

Posted on December 16, 2017 by John Biscello

I get so sleepy

and restless

and roiled

and charged.

If only they knew

what they called world

was simply a clusterfuck

of particles

dreaming of dance partners.

Posted in Artwork, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged Artwork, dance, dream, Gustav Klimt, John Biscello, painting, particles, poem, Poetry, sleep, Stars, woman | Leave a comment

Arclight

Posted on December 16, 2017 by John Biscello

Bidden by tatters, and gravity’s mutable arc, the palpitations guide me.

They are subtle, duly engaged, a milk-slow run of shivers.

Bracing the rim, I peer out of cavedark: everything is sudden,

color-soaked, a ferocious din and melt,

fringed shawls of plasma groped by wind.

My eyes struggle to adjust.

At first they all seem like vagrant stabs of light, undifferentiated,

and then comes the exact piercing, prayer of motherlight warming my lungs,

as if I’ve swallowed a blush.

I realize, with grave tenderness, that I am being born of this split,

the heir and progeny of absence.

Hers, his: a recursive lineage of fractures.

Ready or not, my history is formed, my destiny fixed—

I am a furious comeback waiting to happen.

Posted in Artwork, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged abstract, Abstract Expressionism, birth, dream, eptiaph, fire, God, John Biscello, Light, Mark Rothko, poem, Poetry, red, Yellow | Leave a comment

Deluge

Posted on December 15, 2017 by John Biscello

jackson-pollock-paintings1

It is both pleasure, and an epitaph to pleasure,

at the same time.

When the phenomena occurs

and the colors run

and slash

and slit down upon me

in ravels of deluge.

Spring-green, shell-pink, sky-blue,

bled-red, egg-heaven, grief-yellow.

I, a perpetual guest

bearing witness

to my own seeds

and desires,

feel at home,

happy prey to a luminous gust,

when the colors cake

and blast through me.

It is then that I no longer fear dry clefted

hollows, or loud leveling booms.

It is lighted proof

that I am not forgotten.

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged 1950s, abstract, Abstract Expressionism, Artwork, deluge, Jackson Pollock, John Biscello, painting, poem, Poetry | Leave a comment

Pour

Posted on December 15, 2017 by John Biscello

mushi shi

So much light

poured in,

so much

passive worth.

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged celestial, child, dream, God, John Biscello, Light, love, luminous, mushi-shi, poem, river of light, spirit | Leave a comment

Draft

Posted on December 15, 2017 by John Biscello

There are no mirrors here,

yet everywhere I see myself,

a bated draft of furls,

each bearing the right

to exist, and respire ably.

Posted in Artwork, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged avant-garde, Cinema, dream, experimental, film, furls, John Biscello, Maya Deren, Mirror, poem, Poetry | Leave a comment

Godot Vs. God

Posted on December 15, 2017 by John Biscello

In Godot’s waiting room,

Heaven-rent,

the vacancy sign

had been converted into a living epitaph

for people choking on bated breath:

Here tomorrow,

gone today.

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged breath, eternity, God, Godot, Heaven, John Biscello, poem, Poetry, rent, samuel beckett, today, tomorrow, waiting | Leave a comment

Levitation

Posted on December 13, 2017 by John Biscello

Excerpt from No Man’s Brooklyn, novel-in-progress.

Anya and I were seated on the rubber mat in the front hallway.

We had been playing marbles. Or rather our own version of marbles, which we called Marble Mash. After having bumped one of my marbles off the mat and into the corner, Anya squealed and riotously clapped her hands together. Direct hits always made her happy.

I braced myself for her customary gloating, but it never came. The wattage on her face dimmed. Not to sad but to contemplative. She stared down at her bare knees, then up at me.

I’m going to show you something, okay?

Okay, I said.

I’m-going-to-show-you-something was a trademark Anya-ism.

She had shown me lots of things. One time it was a purplish bruise on her left arm that she never explained. One time it was a letter she claimed to have stolen from her teacher’s desk. One time it was a dead sparrow. One time it was her underwear.

Continue reading →

Posted in Prose, Uncategorized | Tagged Brooklyn, childhood, friends, John Biscello, levitation, Literary, love, mystical, New York, no man's brooklyn, novel | Leave a comment

Sober Judge

Posted on December 13, 2017 by John Biscello

Dylan Thomas falls

from his barstool in Heaven—

God, tending bar, picks him up,

turns to Job—Who am I to judge?

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged bar, barstool, celestial, drinking, Dylan Thomas, God, Heaven, Job, John Biscello, poem, poet | Leave a comment

Missive

Posted on December 13, 2017 by John Biscello

Flown,
without feathers,
an unrelenting missive
engaging remote hints
and near heaven

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged feathers, flying, Heaven, John Biscello, missive, poem, Poetry, spirit | Leave a comment