Tag Archives: memory

Manna

Posted on October 14, 2025 by John Biscello

Do not say the thing that is easily said. Say the other, say the nothing, say the silence, say the unsayable, and save yourself (sort of) through the saying. Gold dust wafts down like filigreed motes from a rain-swollen ceiling. … Continue reading →

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Hips Don’t Lie

Posted on September 16, 2025 by John Biscello

The hips don’t lie. They are the truth-telling giants, and the whistle-blowers transmitting through pirate radio. They are also the catacombs and weather satellites of one’s cumulative genealogy. When an old person falls and breaks their hip, it is not … Continue reading →

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Hips

Posted on September 16, 2025 by John Biscello

I can no longer remember where I was when it happened, only that it happened, it must have happened. Sometimes we cry silent recordings in our bones, or guts, or maybe it is our hips that are the primary storehouses … Continue reading →

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Waves

Posted on September 5, 2025 by John Biscello

What is the difference between memory and fiction? What are the intersecting policies of their tenuous and subjective relationship? For example: You have a woman, a mother recalling her dead daughter. She sees her daughter playing on the beach, she … Continue reading →

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Memory Piece

Posted on September 4, 2025 by John Biscello

A young woman came to see me yesterday. I know it’s my daughter, yet something stops the word daughter from coming out of my mouth, any of my mouths. There is word-daughter and there is daughter-daughter and word-daughter is the … Continue reading →

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Remains of the Day

Posted on September 4, 2025 by John Biscello

The first spots were discovered, and contrary to my sense of fiction, they had nothing to do with extraterrestrials or loneliness. Nor poverty. Soon, no exact timetable, but soon my memories would no longer be mine. I would no longer … Continue reading →

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Knife

Posted on September 1, 2025 by John Biscello

My sister says she doesn’t have many memories from childhood. When she looks back, there’s nothing there: a blank screen. I never asked her if she saw black or white in her absence of memories. One of her earliest memories, … Continue reading →

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Memory and Fiction

Posted on November 10, 2024 by John Biscello

What is the difference between memory and fiction? What are the intersecting policies of their tenuous and subjective relationship? For example: You have a woman, a mother recalling her dead daughter. She sees her daughter playing on the beach, she … Continue reading →

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Sea Change

Posted on August 25, 2024 by John Biscello

Excerpt from my recently completed novel, Worlds Last Imagined. This fragment is a meditation upon the tenuous and subjective relationship between memory and fiction: She stood at a distance, imagining her daughter there, playing. She saw how her daughter lit … Continue reading →

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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 … Continue reading →

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