Tag Archives: Prose

He Who Gets Slapped

Posted on November 15, 2024 by John Biscello

In this unaired episode of Happy Days, titled “The Other Cheek,” Arthur Fonzarelli, Fonzi, the Fonz, slaps Richie Cunningham hard across the face. Void of context, we don’t know why. Richie’s jaw drops. He is in complete shock. He holds … Continue reading →

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Honeymoon Killer

Posted on November 15, 2024 by John Biscello

Ralph Kramden sweats and sweats, eyeballs bulging in their sockets. Plagued by the accursed notion that he has become a whale, no, a rhinoceros, no, an inoculated hippo that shows up to birthday parties uninvited. This visual grotesquerie, reflected back … Continue reading →

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Scarecrow

Posted on November 13, 2024 by John Biscello

You got to ask yourself: Do you want to fuck Judy Garland? Or do you want to become her? I wasn’t prepared for this line of questioning. I was eleven at the time. Or twelve. I think, eleven. My mother’s … Continue reading →

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The Trial

Posted on November 12, 2024 by John Biscello

Enlightened, perhaps. God-engorged hormones, maybe. Regardless of why, Joan, you were the rebel prototype long before James Dean zipped up a red jacket, or Marlon Brando mumbled and curled his upperlip into a stylized totem. Before Louise Brooks and Josephine … Continue reading →

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Veils

Posted on November 12, 2024 by John Biscello

Invention was your solitude and twin, wasn’t it, Miss Nin? The calculated manner in which you spread secret pages, like silk violet capes or fringed shawls, promising an air of mystery and desire. You enabled the cause of symmetry, so … Continue reading →

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Fante and Bandini

Posted on November 12, 2024 by John Biscello

Inferiority might have been your first memory. Though you were born on American soil, stubbornly planted there, the chinked chains of immigration clanked and rattled, Marley-style, tightening around your throat, as you butted your head against the scabby base of … Continue reading →

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We Pause for Glacial Identification

Posted on November 10, 2024 by John Biscello

It is the winter within, the writer dying, the chaos bible scored in ice, texts of veins, I mean, I think I mean, veins of text, veins and bulging whorls of text embedded in ice, and your body moving through … Continue reading →

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Monkeys and Barrels

Posted on November 9, 2024 by John Biscello

None of it was going anywhere. It had been a while. Both things were true. Both could be beginnings. So let’s go with both: None of it was going anywhere. It had been a while. I felt like a dehydrated … Continue reading →

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John Fante

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

John Fante splashed vinegar into the eyes of the world. The vinegar was house-made, from his mama’s trusty cupboard. Mama’s cupboard contained a lot, an old-world apothecary glutted with cloves of garlic, deceit, shame, bones, crucifixes, oregano, thyme, rosary beads, … Continue reading →

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Jean Rhys

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Jean Rhys was a bedraggled feline. She’d slink through cobbled alleys, lap up Parisian rainwater. High sky glance the glittering harem of stars, and long. Cats are the masters of longing. Spiders are patient, but when it comes to longing, … Continue reading →

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