Tag Archives: Prose

Grandmother

Posted on January 15, 2018 by John Biscello

   She was short, a spud of a woman, who in the summer looked like an overbaked potato.    Her hair was a mushroom-cap, a helmet-poof petrified by copious amounts of Aqua Net hairspray. My grandmother was sweet, exceptionally sensitive, … Continue reading →

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Slant

Posted on January 15, 2018 by John Biscello

Emily Dickinson advised that we “tell it slant.” This makes sense. Telling it slant is a natural outgrowth of living it slant. Oblique paths and slanted paths dominate my sense of inner geography. Dylan Thomas wrote: “The memories of childhood … Continue reading →

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Flea Bitten

Posted on January 9, 2018 by John Biscello

Greyhound: A sleek, streamlined, swift-as-the-wind breed of dog. A coughing, sputtering, wheezing, smoke-blowing mutt, prone to flea infestation.    I spent a great deal of my twenties canned inside the dank sweaty armpit of travel Americana: Greyhound.  It was an … Continue reading →

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Saturday Night Russian

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

   It was Jake who first called Anya the Saturday Night Russian. It started when Anya was twelve. Up until that point her wardrobe had been pretty subdued, pretty ordinary. Jeans or capris, T-shirts, sandals or sneakers. Then, seemingly overnight, … Continue reading →

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Digging in the Dirt

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

   The episode played and we laughed at the scenes and punchlines we had seen and heard at least a hundred times. Our laughter was tracked on a loop, because no matter how many times we saw it, always Ralph … Continue reading →

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Center of Nowhere

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

    I come from nowhere Daniel, and nowhere is the exact center of the world. Isn’t that exciting?    I agreed with Anya that it was, even though I wasn’t sure what she meant. And I knew if I … Continue reading →

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House of Incest

Posted on January 8, 2018 by John Biscello

Excerpt from No Man’s Brooklyn, novel-in-progress.    Toward the end my mother began to open up. Of course I didn’t know the end was coming, nor did my father.    My mother, during the last several months, had become a … Continue reading →

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Young Forever

Posted on January 7, 2018 by John Biscello

Anya and I had almost three weeks. The flirt and tease of a young forever. It felt good to be with Anya in this new way. We were no longer ourselves, we were ourselves as a couple, this third and … Continue reading →

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Boneyard

Posted on January 7, 2018 by John Biscello

Sometimes you have to walk through the boneyard, in order to reach the garden.

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Monster

Posted on January 7, 2018 by John Biscello

Fiction is a monster. It demands, it consumes. It is a glutton. Enough is never enough. It won’t be satisfied until the unreal becomes utterly real, beyond real. Its sole desire is to usurp reality, to surpass it. It basks … Continue reading →

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