Tag Archives: Prose

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 →

Posted in Artwork, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in photography, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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 →

Posted in photography, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kerouac

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Kerouac whizzed and hummed. He lived with smoldering zest a crumbling highway within. He took to this unlighted highway, equal parts tour guide and lost little lamb, nuzzling a candle, believing that even the littlest light would make him brave, … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beckett

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Samuel Beckett plunged his head so far up his ass, daylight became a dream and conundrum. He saw the world through shit-filtered glasses, the bluest of roses manure-caked, anal cavity functioning as the base of inspiration, as the grimy pulpit … Continue reading →

Posted in photography, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No Dominion

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Dark. Lights up. Piles of sand on stage. Reddish sand. In some areas, the sand is piled high, forming mini-dunes. In other areas, thin flat layers. Sticking out of the sand are shards of glass. A woman lying on stage … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose, Theater | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment