My nights
Are a tortured canvas
On which dreams
Can paint their worries
Leaving streaks
Of scary futures
Staining scenes
Like blotted ink –

All these visions
I can’t flee

Or avoid
By praying daily,

Those empty pleas
I bargain
Beneath bedsheets
Soaked in sweat,

Every evening
Floating free
Over coffins
Where my loved ones
Gather mourners
Throwing flowers
Besides caskets
Housing bone.

For some fears
Will still remain

Though I choose my colors
Darkest,

Hiding memories
Forming thickest
Inside substance
Made of ash –

Facing death
Towards coming days,

Finding sunlight
Mixes nicely

Among shades
Whose waking palettes
Seem important
Besides black.

Yet my bad ways
Keep repeating
Thinking drawings
Have existence
Outside sketches
Demons conjure
Within confines
Called our nerves,

As they outline
Every wish

Then divide them
By obsession

Doing math
That predicts nothing
Proving faith
Just doesn’t work

While both eyes
Are closed to God
Signing portraits
Through His promise
Letting art
Hide better angels
Behind terrors
Sleeping brings.

• J. Pigno