Sometimes
This empty page
Is the only ear
Which listens
When a voice
Grows coarse
And desperate
From years
Of being unheard

Still yelling
That withered plea
Through verse
Not hardly spoken
But written
Down
In context
On margins
Missing their lines,

Like the kind
Our lives define
By an absent rule
Or meaning
Left hanging there

For emphasis

To denote
What space
Exists

By virtue
Of losing faith
At the cost
These phrases carry,

Each one
A subtle murder,

Each pain
Dramatic
Pause –

Where proof
Is feeling numb
Beyond such bold
Descriptions
Despite
How words
Show pictures
Expressed
Without consent.

Those lifetimes
Between terms
Are God’s
Disgusted grammar,

His book
Of violations
Lost among
Each sentence
Told

Dealing judgments
So unfair
As what blankness
Carries vaguely

These obscene
And pale
Emotions

Called expression
Left behind.

– J. Pigno