Alignment

Posted on December 24, 2023 by John Biscello

Conceive of your body as the size of a planet. Notice that your body is inhabited by many things, each unique and unrepeatable in its design and imprint. Shrink yourself down to the size of an amoeba. Observe the uniquely unrepeatable structures of the giants roaming the world of which you are a part. Conceive of yourself as a human being. What do you see?

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Before Beauty

Posted on December 23, 2023 by John Biscello

Count the number of wrinkles in the night sky. Count the number of wrinkles in the ocean. Tell the sky it is old and beautiful. Tell the ocean it is old and beautiful. Write a note saying—I am old and beautiful—and tape it onto a mirror. Look into the mirror and recite the words aloud—I am old and beautiful. This can be done no matter what age you imagine yourself to be, no matter the length and breadth and volume of your memory.

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Directory

Posted on December 23, 2023 by John Biscello

Pick a name at random from a phone book. Let’s say Shultz. Pick a second name at random from a phone book. Let’s say Espinoza. Call Schultz and pretend to be Espinoza. Call Espinoza and pretend to be Schultz. Then call a third stranger, let’s say Mills, and pretend to be yourself.  

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Sleep Study

Posted on December 22, 2023 by John Biscello

Sleep. For days and nights sleep, days and weeks, sleep. Forget your children. Forget your husband. Forget your pets. Forget the state of your furniture. Forget the state you’re living in. Forget the bills that have to be paid. Forget the last time you had an orgasm, real or false. Forget all unspecified anxieties gnawing at your entrails. Forget, and sleep as if you are waiting to be born. Wake up and know that you are already dead. Go on dreaming.

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Mooning

Posted on December 22, 2023 by John Biscello

Go outside with a hand mirror on a full moon night. Breathe into the mirror. Then hold the mirror up to the moon at such an angle that moonlight is reflected into the palm of your free hand. Go to someone you love, someone with whom you share intimate touch. Undress the person slowly, until there is nothing left but light. Use your moon-soaked hand to touch them all over. Continue doing this, light on light, until one or both of you gasps immeasurably.

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Touch

Posted on December 21, 2023 by John Biscello

Bleed a sunset until your hands are dyed maraschino, until your palms are scorched. Then go to bed with someone you love. Undress them slowly. When you reach the unoccupied territory of bare skin, allow your hands to caress unremittingly. Ask the person what it feels like to have the sun touching them with explicit favor.

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Judy Garland

Posted on December 21, 2023 by John Biscello

Tell yourself Christmas is a Technicolor fantasy celebrated on the moon. Bring young Judy Garland to mind. Have her sing Christmas is a Technicolor fantasy celebrated on the moon, the lyrics improvisationally transmitted from your mind to her lips. While Judy sings, her voice at times quavering like crystal intimating its own valor and demise, recall someone dead you loved. Unwrap the memory, as if a gift.

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Call and Response

Posted on December 20, 2023 by John Biscello

Find an old telephone booth. If you can’t find an old telephone booth, use a refrigerator box, or the dimensional equivalent. Enter the booth or box. Place a dime, real or imaginary, inside the phantom slot and place a call to someone, real or imaginary your call. Tell this somebody many of your secrets. Pour out recessed grief. When you are done, hang up the phone. Exit the booth. Go to a market and buy yourself a piece of your favorite fruit. Savor it slowly while sitting on a park bench. Think of someone dead you loved, and tell yourself that tomorrow you will call them and tell them about everything that happened today.

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Squared

Posted on December 20, 2023 by John Biscello

Gather in the town square. Bring a dummy that looks like you. Or like someone who imagines what you look like. Others will also bring their dummies. The square will be filled with dummies of all kinds. Stones will form a ceremonial perimeter encircling the square. These stones are meant to be hurled at the dummies. Take care to only hit your dummy with the stones you throw. If you hit someone else’s dummy, apologize. If someone else hits your dummy, do not take it personally. When all the stones have been hurled, each person is to decapitate their dummy. The severed heads will be tossed into a fire and burned. Flowers are to be planted in the holes where the heads were.

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Holes

Posted on December 20, 2023 by John Biscello

Cut a hole in the wind and sing through it. Put your ear to the ground. Listen for the echo of what you sang. Cut a hole in ground and sing into it. Listen to the wind and hear your grounded voice traveling. Cut a hole in yourself and allow sunlight to enter. Bury yourself in the earth up to your neck and feel how the dark below is collecting the sudden wealth of your incandescence. Cut out necessary chatter, and abide silence as mentor and grace.   

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