We’re a frantic bunch
Whose worries
Become what words
Escape us
Over desperate thoughts
Which carry
Into days spent
Rambling on

About every fear
That lasts
Beyond bitten tongues
Left begging
For a chance to scream
Expressions
And shout their dreams
At stones,

Never hearing
Our common voice
When selecting terms
Distinctly
Conveying such
Focused phrases
With intentions made
Well-known

By embittered lines
Ignored
Hoping weary souls
Still smolder
Under ashes held
Innately
While believing art
Builds smoke

Before burning bright
Out loud
Since explosions sound
Uncanny
Among embers snuffed
Through silence
Lost faith has since
Imposed –

Taking jobs
No person wants
Though some believe
Yield meaning
Despite real life
Existing
Between these roles
Most play

Where bliss includes
Each laugh
Tearing dollar bills
Now worthless
From agreeing love
Should forfeit
All attachments held
Towards grief,

Finding pain
Ensures true verse
If accepting God
Is leisure
Letting pleasure spell
Acceptance
Of catharsis sought
As one.

• J. Pigno

I’d often think
Terrible things,

Like imagining death
In that instance
When no one’s around
And it’s quiet –

Just peaceful enough
To feel scared.

There wouldn’t be
Calling for help,

Hearing family’s tears
During passage

Towards an unknown risk
Which awaits me
After living so long
In this shell,

But judgment’s breath
Filling air
While clouding lungs
Soon expired
Amid silent ghosts
Always watching
Between crowded walls
Become home.

Such fear
Means nirvana exists
Beyond false hopes
Of our choosing –

Simple pleasures
Leaving us empty,

Hands with cash
Buying sins,

Never satisfied
Clawing at whims
Since forgetting needs
Remain useless
If faith finds God
Going missing
Over decades spent
Losing hope.

Ironically,
Happiness sits
Outside failed dreams
Chasing wishes
Men’s labors make
Appear futile
Tricking flesh
Through working too hard.

Having heart
Seems very unfair
Until skipping beats
Surface daily,

Telling plainly
Mortality beckons,

Quickly wondering
“Why suffer more?”

Whether heaven
Or hell does await,
My anxieties grow
Oddly neutral –

Those horrors
Bring miserable solace,

Every vision
Yields cathartic relief.

• J. Pigno

My damages
Go too deep
Like a fracture
Below the gum line
When mouths appear
Straight as an arrow
But beneath them
Is shattering bone

Where my jaw sits
Crooked like sin
From fighting fears
Against failing
Taking punches
Meant for disasters
Whose every breath
Remains hard

As existence
Forces this clench
Between both halves
Always gritting
While row meets edge
Grinding further
What suffering teeth
Still exist –

Those molars
Throbbing with pain
And pent up rage
Feeling tender
Over sleepless nights
Chewing fragments
Left neglected
Since breaking apart.

Each piece
Keeps driving me mad
Reminding spit
How aggression
Will eat us alive
If we let it
Though such anger
Persists undefined

Inside raw lips
Hiding speech
Now staying shut
Being spiteful
Knowing holding words
Ignites fires
To gnaw at souls
Grating stone –

Frail enamel
Burning up dust
Making ashes spark
Tiny cinders
Amid weakened fangs
Chomping harshly
Across surfaces
Getting more dull,

That tongue
Tasting coming demise
Or surgeries
Barely successful
Nibbling nasty shards
Shaping relics
Only smiles
Could easily show.

• J. Pigno

I adore that
Which has no filter
Like a midnight kiss
Between spouses
Whose collective needs
Become reasons
Why God exists
Through their touch,

This semblance
Of heaven made flesh
Across those sheets
Feeling sacred
As sweat drips life
Shedding meaning
In an intimate pose
After dark –

One moment
Where worries can fade
Like background noise
Beyond windows
Trading gentle stares
Under moonlight
Growing tired
From days not shared

When existence
Precedes such joy
Holding time itself
For faith’s ransom
Merely earning pain
By tomorrow
While believing love
Always waits

To endure our fears
Getting deeper
Beneath thick lies
Morning sells us
Finding empty truths
Killing pleasure
Only sacred vows
Ever know,

Lacking pretense
But genuine joy
Despite money
And Earth’s expectation
Demanding work
Become special
Over ecstasy
Artists must write

Building narratives
Written with tears
Seeing crying eyes
Before sleeping
Yielding poems
Divinely inspired
Embracing fates
Intertwined.

One story
Across two hearts
Is truth itself
Getting naked
Upon what bed
Defeats fiction
Casting roles
Against purposeless tales.

• J. Pigno

Death row
Is that spiritual place
Where all men go
After losing
What God Himself
Has provided
In their privileged fate
Called love –

Our undeserved grace
Become flesh
Through partnership
Sullied by failure
After waiting years
For her presence
To redeem what soul
We have left,

Finding jail at home
With each thought
Like every belief
Being broken
And feeling condemned
Among memories
Vacant as hearts
Missing faith

She provided once
Knowing grief
Soon enduring days
Always hurting
Watching joyous times
Sully quickly
Over moments spent
Fighting back

Against selfishness
Making things cold
Growing farther apart
Despite staying
Getting angry
Since lacking connection
Needing empathy
Rather than sins.

How distance
Eliminates warmth
While drifting flames
Barely burning
Find lasting sparks
Provide lessons
When imprisoned
Behind crying eyes,

Arguing greed
Was the cause
But agreeing fear
Pulls its trigger
Learning panicked minds
Cannot reason
Upon answered prayers
Going wrong –

From those gallows
Nooses will hang
Stringing ropes which sit
Merely waiting
Near these ended dreams
Gone forever
Punishing souls
Still alive.

• J. Pigno

These are the things
I can promise:

To never betray
What is sacred
By engaging pain
Through my anger
Which rarely forgets
You’re a saint,

Despite how fear
Often shows
From those past lives
Seeking to surface
Beneath raw hands
Always shaking
Before crying so long
After dark –

When her cheek
Is turned on its side,

Resting that head
Towards my pillow,

Feeling agony build
During sleeping
Knowing nightmares play
Missing sins

We forget
While staying awake
And finding each day
Still beginning
Instead of bad truths
Being swallowed
But thrown back up
If we rest.

Forgive how hurt
Reappears –

Remaining bold
Besides healing,

Swearing sometimes
Love means we suffer
Fighting constant odds
Fate has stacked.

Experience proves
Rain will fall,

Though marriage
Affirms looming sunlight,

Like commitment grows
Over decades
Quickly fading
Into death do us part.

Trading vows means
Trusting our skies
Zigzagging across
Without reason,

Following storms
Unspecific
But certain enough
Faced as one –

An oath
Two together must take,

Yet separately
Bearing real burdens –

Pledging failure
Strengthens endurance,

Merely answering
Prayers trailing clouds.

• J. Pigno

My eyes
Can barely see light
In the thick
Of this early morning
Where grayness sits
As an omen
Since uncertainty
Always comes,

Having ignorance
Follow suit
On that brink
While misery beckons
All our favorite fears
With daylight
When depression burns
Like sun –

Much too harsh
For hiding pain
Parting clouds
Unveiling chaos
Casting shadows
From every failure
Some avoid
By hiding away.

I keep committing
Fate’s cardinal sin
Hardly knowing
What threat is coming
Whether losing life
Spent waiting
Or avoiding sleep
At all,

Watching nightfall
Soon approach
After hours
We wasted working
Towards another dawn
More dangerous
Than each one
Which came before –

Left ambiguous
Through hope’s design
Undefined
Despite God’s promise
Sharing details
Beyond death’s presence
Letting symbols talk
Instead

Across palettes
Streaking paints
Seeing tired skies
Grow golden
Yielding vivid dusks
So brilliant
Even radiance
Seems less sure

How tomorrow
Could even exist
Facing constant risks
Still hurting
Those who dare
Defiant waking
Fighting back
Though feeling drab.

• J. Pigno

Here’s how things
Get ugly –

When the nightmares
Bleed into daylight 

And these feelings
Crawl like spiders 
Under skin so dry
It cracks, 

Where inadequate dreams
Can’t relate
To a world outside
Drawn curtains

While watching life
Pass slowly
Across screens that mock
This fate. 

There are scissors
Sitting near drawers 
Still pushing hands 
Losing reasons 
For removing hair
Going missing
With blindfolds
Over both eyes,

As I excuse this fear 
Buying games
Hoping sometime soon
They’ll relieve me 
Since playing now 
Doesn’t offer
Another way home  
Through escape. 

Only prayer 
Can merely provide 
Constant solace 
Sought through devotion,

Once relieving dread
Building slowly
During months we wait 
Spent alone, 

But becoming weak 
Facing truth
That tomorrow’s spark  
Remains dwindled 
Facing raging storms
Pouring water
Upon fires stoked
By our faith. 

Such brutal ends
Appear soft,

Gentle rains 
Before every deluge,

Hitting tempered glass
Along panels
Which protect us 
Behind thick walls –

Whether sleep
Or ignorant joys
Distracting minds
From obsession,

Each pleasure 
Is terror reminding 
A waking end
Has begun.

• J. Pigno

On nights
When I dream in gray
That palace calls
Through shadows
Where feelings sit
Like portraits
Hung across its walls
Of stone –

Those lonely scenes
Obscured
Along blackened halls
Grown colder
From evening storms
Still hailing
Gentle crystals
Moonlight brings

Which traces peaks
Far off
Building distance viewed
From windows
Where each tower meets
Their heaven
Hiding secrets held
By clouds,

Every staircase
Climbing high
Chasing tiny cracks
Up turrets
While old mirrors stare
At phantoms
Framed with gold
Since ages past

Watching fear
Assemble death
Using broken glass
They’ve shattered
Piecing shards
For true reflections
Just to translate
What went wrong.

Such mosaics
Feature proof
How this manor rests
Near judgment
Atop platforms
Always looming
Between God
And frigid hell,

Waiting now
Though soon revealed
If our lonely minds
Should beckon
Finding fear more hope
Than reason
Behind doorways
Curtains mask,

Shielding corridors
Gone dark
Beneath mounting dust
Left floating
Amid nervous lives
Now sleeping
Carrying candles
Always snuffed.

• J. Pigno

I write for my dream
Which dwindles
In the midst of these
Hopeless verses
Whose fears
Are a pending encounter
Beyond what life
Still remains,

Where agony means
Keeping peace
When days pass by
Without speaking
What urgent needs
Always fester
Holding feelings back
Very long

While emotion seems
Better dead
Than awaiting words
Never coming
Out of silent rage
Wishing sunlight
Were cloudy skies
Pouring faith

Over arid lands
Lacking truth
Growing empty lines
Missing purpose
Or blessed fruit
Bearing wishes
Yielding harvests
Nourishing souls –

Those sacred rains
Hailing tears
Only angels shed
If inspired
By doubting saints
Sitting vigil
As despair shows 
How they will pray,

Merely idling
Tempering pain   
Through secrets kept
Between notebooks
And demanding proof
Among messes
Their chaotic minds
Can believe

Renders beauty
Measured on whims
Seizing moments spent
Facing chances
Finding daily work
Provides nothing
Except further guilt
Wasting art

So easily killed
Shutting mouths
Losing every gift
God has granted
Leaving deepest thoughts
Across pages
Human eyes can read
But not share.

• J. Pigno