Better days
Live forever on tape
As the VCR spins
What is missing
When memories made
Remain captured
Through staticky screens
Nearly gone

Like analog gifts
Almost lost
With such holiday scenes
Long forgotten
Of smiles unknown
Off in corners
Where those relatives sat
Just to hide

Looking grim
Yet laughing again
Shielding faces
Feeling so guilty
But staying that night
Never sleeping
Playing video games
From our beds

Until childhood dreams
Became texts
Every birthday now
Still believing
How one day soon
Those old visits
Might happen again
Though they can’t

Knowing time outside
Grainy films
Has left more ghosts
Than its pictures
Whose images blur
Beyond meaning
During nightmares
Wishing things back

Before death itself
Ushers age
Along digital lines
All around us
Making empty space
Between people
Seem up close
Despite being far.

• J. Pigno

I’m sitting on
Faith’s last lane
At an exit
Where life stays
Gridlocked

Near billboards
White
With red lettering
Asking if love
Still endures

For God
In my heart
So unsure
Since chasing that hope
More uncertain

Than His answer
Stale
Like experience
When all roads end
Just the same,

While morning tasks
Feeling blocked
Leaves adventure
Dead
From repeating

Every evening
Now
Through our labor
Till we sleep
To hurt once again.

Can this traffic
Offer us truth
Knowing cars
Themselves
Prolong waiting –

How motion stirs
False affinities
Towards journeys
Done
By their start?

Only time and gas
Never last
Letting fear
Control
What is driven –

Even highways
Freeze
Through believing
Destinations
Always exist.

• J. Pigno

There’s no solace
In being dismissed
When the loss we grieve
Becomes fatal
And love’s great cost
Offers little
But a balance regained
In our books

As their decimals feel
Ever stoic
Where riches appear
Very meager
Compared to fate’s hand
Barely measured
Or recorded on lines
Under checks

How lives once shared
Throw them back
Letting unknown joys
Return moments
Like yesterday’s goods
Worth existence
Now defined by cash
Through exchange

Of replaceable dreams
Between hearts
So easily fooled
Trading measures
For suffering vows
Truly hopeful
Until one bad day
Kills it all

Missing laughs
But needing relief
Defined while hurt
Keeps deceiving
Another real pair
Still believing
Some belongings trump
Having soul

If left with pain
Looking sharp
Since value speaks
Over meaning
Now that purity dies
Seeking profit
Forever engaged
Though divorced.

• J. Pigno

Can this agony
Help to escape
What routines
Have rendered me
Wordless,

An obsessive fix
Feigning patience
For eternities
Normal
And dull

From their patterns
Selectively placed
Around moments
Faked
Being busy

Until feelings
Creep between gestures
While shaking
So much
I am damned –

Through that illness
Nervously shown
Like our death
Another true
Sentence,

Or its phrases
Judgment incarnate
So inspired
By fear
Where we burn?

Though weakness
Never can tell,
Such poetry
Speaks
Even stronger.

All suffering
Fires religion
Found within us
Now
When things hurts –

Only heard
As penance untold
Held against
God’s mouth
Always honest,

Leaving beauty
Besides bitter demons
Heading back
Towards home
Missing flames.

• J. Pigno

You can’t see stars
In New York
As its lights obscure
Heaven’s limit
From below that sky
Hiding midnight
Far beyond my town
Never dark

And too damn bright
With belief
Not for God Himself
But ambition
Which fails such truth
Seeking answers
So explicitly said
Looking up

When our evening bears
Better gifts
Than another attempt
At existing
By scouring streets
Always glowing
Until blindness kills
Every hope

Wishing dreams
Just didn’t need cash
Where we work through pain
Meaning gambles
By money again
Taking precedence
Over a moment’s breath
Being free

Sharing art
Like prophets untold
Crushing souls
Whose poems ascended
Right besides dim moons
Growing richer
While dying down here
Seeming poor

Until madness
Offers escape
Swept away now quick
Driving further
Towards their one last chance
Finding faithfulness
Off those highways
Saints only know.

• J. Pigno

I am tired
Of wordless plays
And these scenes
In an empty theater
On days left dark
Writing speeches
Still for silent parts
Unsaid

With emotions
More contrived
Or acts held down
Truly grieving
While believing things
Not mentioned
Still deserve such lines
Get told

By pretending
Some might hear
If conveying truth
Unnoticed
When its dialogue feels
Only natural
Knowing poetry
Never quite sells

Many seats
Like faking this dance
Under stage lights bright
Needing tickets
To watch some lie
Fail completely
So that honest voice
Has their chance

Where the loudest mouth
Is produced
Since exception stems
From each stutter
Over music loud
As distractions
Can deceive who speaks
What redeems

Through achieving dreams
Always hushed
Despite learning art
Defies business
Being humbled now
After shouting
Over crowds engaged
Seeing stars.

• J. Pigno

Oh dear God,
I am wrong –
Can this poem
Excuse
Any punishment?

Is an empty phrase
So revolting
That suffering
Becomes
What it needs?

My faith insists
There are rules
Behind
Each line
That will kill us,

Governing
How harsh
We feel sentenced
Which in turn
Expresses truth best –

And here’s how sin
Offers proof
For artistry
Raw
As intended,

By fear exposed
Bearing witness
To flaws
Well-known
Where they thrive

By doubtful lies
Reason sells
When divinity
Seems
More conceited

Than another
Mad soul
Sharing secrets
Hoping heaven
Ignores bitter words.

Some terms
Bring calamities down
Upon
Whose pen
Dare deny them –

Just more bad press
Against everything
Honest
But remotely
Obscene.

• J. Pigno

Even now
I feel often judged
For the fear that God
Truly hates us
And shows such love
Through abandon
When those who believe
Suffer most

By a numbness grown
Through defeat
And suggestions wrong
As depicted
When experience proves
Every answer
Leaves examples made
Out of hurt

Meaning willingness
Just doesn’t work
With its open heart
Too afflicted
Or disasters rife
Always present
Being commonly seen
Where we pray

On those days if joy
Runs away
Worried how much pain
Is expected
Knowing offset costs
Closely follow
By destroying scenes
Duly paid

Since expensive sins
Run their tab
Over smiling lives
Behind cameras
Ruining moments spent
Chasing memories
From our tainted pasts
Never far

Until having hope
Seems unfair
While heaven exploits
Human weakness
Still out there sad
Needing comfort
That existence rests
In His hands.

• J. Pigno

This body just
Won’t let me heal
Despite how much
It might linger
With these taunts
Of limitless symptoms
Ignored by those
Who should help

But still can’t
Despite playing God
Fooling desperate men
Who must worship
Any dollar made
Through such pretense
Claiming science
Has justified greed

When our agony
Feels more at home
Than attempts they fake
Showing kindness
From instilling fear
Like injections
Soon collecting checks
After that

All for nothing
And being sent home
Seeming gaslit now
Every second
While claiming again
“He’s so anxious”
As their way
To always dismiss

What illness prompts
Seeing truth
Behind taboo lines
Never questioned
Knowing honest help
Doesn’t settle
If believing
Answers exist

Since today
Is promising hell
Yet tomorrow
Hides every heaven
Beyond easy pills
And misjudgments
Where that emptiness
Always awaits.

• J. Pigno

Can we give this a go
Without pain
Just one more time
Before leaving
By recalling life’s
Bitter blessings
And forgetting
How bad its become

Though our hearts
Miss having their chance
As tomorrow’s light
Depicts shadows
Of an unfair dream
Unobtainable
On walls inside
Where we sleep,

Casting doubts
Like shapeless attempts
From each morning sun
Begging difference
Despite years grown ill
After waiting
Too long for change
Which escapes

When that promise
Eludes every hope
Being faultless
Despite feeling guilty
Or sharing fates
So eternal
No death could slight
What they grasp.

Even trapped
Such poetry speaks
Between soulmates lost
Behind windows
Whose hands held tight
Cannot leverage
While believing
Freedom exists,

Far away
Among open worlds
Hearing music
Distantly playing
How such saddest songs
Deserve repeats
Letting love
Speak lyrics again.

• J. Pigno