Tag Archives: Prose

Breaking the Mold

Posted on November 30, 2020 by John Biscello

“All that matters now is the ‘deep inner serenity for the sake of creation.’ Though whether I shall ever ‘create’ is something I can’t really tell. But I do believe that it is possible to create, even without ever writing … Continue reading →

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Small World Stuff

Posted on November 30, 2020 by John Biscello

“So let this be the aim of the meditation: to turn one’s innermost being into a vast, empty plain, with none of the treacherous undergrowth to impede the view. So that something of ‘God’ can enter you, and something of … Continue reading →

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Illuminations

Posted on November 19, 2020 by John Biscello

“You know of course that slowness is the only illumination I’ve ever had.” — Peter Handke, The Afternoon of a Writer A writer, fastening his worth to the tempo of grass, to the yellow leaves separating their grief from their … Continue reading →

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What Was It You Said?

Posted on November 19, 2020 by John Biscello

“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries and yet it is, itself, the greatest of our miseries.” — Blaise Pascal Oh, distraction, you paradoxical bastard– Sky laughs, stays open.

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A Thousand Women

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“I am not indifferent to the greater dramas hanging over us, but drama is everywhere the same, microcosm or macrocosm. It is not my destiny to live the drama of Spain, war, death, agony, hunger. It is my destiny to … Continue reading →

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Toy Story

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“Tedium . . . it’s perhaps, after all, the dissatisfaction of the intimate soul because we haven’t given it a belief, the desolation of the sad child we are deep down, because we haven’t bought him a divine toy.” – … Continue reading →

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American Alley

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“What absurdity.  There is not one novel of America.  There are a thousand Americas. Big Business is only one of its inhuman, monstrous products.  But jazz is the expression of America’s romantic self, its sensual potency, its lyrical force. Big … Continue reading →

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Them Blues

Posted on November 16, 2020 by John Biscello

“… the blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged train and transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from … Continue reading →

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Walkabout

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“My whole life has been little else than a long reverie divided into chapters by my daily walks”–Jean-Jacques Rousseau To ground, daily, these dreams of novel origins, bracing bold contact with rounded edges, off which falling is favored and soundly … Continue reading →

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Tall Black Armchair, or, Anais Nin Revisited

Posted on November 13, 2020 by John Biscello

“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair.  I will be the one woman you will never have … excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the … Continue reading →

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