The bad things
Always play out
Inside my mind
Before sleeping
When intrusive thoughts
Have their chances
At ruining dreams
Every night

Where this headspace
Always seems dark
While our TV plays
As I wrestle
With flashing lights
Between memories
Soon waking us up
More disturbed

Like film scenes
Torn from old reels
Which burned so fast
After learning
Such days we miss
Become burdens
Weighing down hope
Barely left

If predicting fate
Too unreal
All souls must brave
Still uncertain
That any good God
Could just dangle
Over faithful hearts
Seeking rest

By enduring fears
They can’t shake
Or redeeming lives
Nearly wasted
And running away
Towards obsessions
Hiding happiness
Under success

But asking each moon
For escape
Only finding hurt
Upon begging
Hitting pillows
Quietly thinking
Bedroom shadows
Of horror turn true.

• J. Pigno

I think it’s bad
To be famous
Because influence
Always seems saddest
If everyone knows
Who the face is
And only
A story that sells

But not that truth
By description
Of brilliant turns
Sharing spotlights
Where cameras burn
Bitter smiles
Over unknown frowns
Just beneath

As childhood dreams
Pay in cash
Through empty realms
Feeling flattered
Like earning checks
Feigning memories
For this present
Barely expressed

While experienced
Numb from success
Though passively lost
When admitted
Making vapid scenes
Trading stories
During talk shows
Hiding defeat

Since abuses
Never come close
Needing substance
Other than liquor
Always seeking thrills
Merely human
Many bragging souls
Cannot grasp

Leaving theaters
Dead before long
With compared applause
After pictures
Making legacy
Seem so unneeded
Pitting honest life
Against film.

• J. Pigno

By our end
All are promised
Nothing
But the good one does
Seeking answers,

Missing life’s point
Asking questions
Whose mystery
Holds
Why we love –

A journey so clear
After dying
In God’s bare arms
Which show
Pity

Based on acts
Long committed
Before knowing
How sin
Always fails

By this negligence
Finding success
Or accolades
Wrong
Like suggestions

Since men must kill
Working harder
Towards emptiness
Built
On their stash.

What good
Does fear ever bring
When happiness
Stems
From redemption

Built through trust
Learning family
Isn’t blood
But flesh
Humans share?

Only honesty
Offers relief
While pride
Obscures
Better angels.

Surely hope
Reflects
Heaven’s graces
Here where hate
Still distracts.

• J. Pigno

I’ll never be
Noticed like them
As a man
Whose words
Stay remembered,

But in truth
That’s not what is
Needed
When attention
Muddles our voice –

Such honesty
Stemming from sweat
And ignored
Once more
Despite trying,

Always learning
Again
How inaction
Combined with hurt
Makes it real.

For such purity
Only exists
During moments
Life
Feels imperfect,

Finding belief
Where we falter
All alone
But blessed
Being wrong.

This transience
Offers no hope
Yet affirms
Lost art
Retains meaning,

Expressing faith
Soon expired
Like some daylight
Missed
After dark

Since happiness
Fades before long
If success
Just trades
Every failure

Seeking phrases
Hardly immortal
Not at least
Endured
Or enjoyed.

• J. Pigno

There were winds
On nights we had stayed
Which kept me awake
Before dreaming
After thinking long
About winter
And staring outside
Into dusk

At trees which danced
Over cliffs
Beyond our view
Through that window
During midnight’s fall
Each November
Being far from home
Near those woods

Soon settling down
Losing track
Of some holiday warmth
Nearly passing
After moments seized
Became memories
Feeling hotel rooms
Remain still

Turning cold
Though dwindling fast
Towards an anxious rest
Grown recurrent
Fearing visions
Twisted by worry
Gone atomic now
As they hit

Since bombs had dropped
Leaving snow
Atop old brown shacks
Under mountains
Where we huddled close
All together
Until death itself
Turned us white

Learning faith
Was forever a choice
Knowing love
Would never diminish
What explosion
Tainted such innocence
While loud static
Ruled the TV.

• J. Pigno

Winning at all
Is an illness
Which never quite
Heals
Once you taste it,

That’s why
My strength
Has been failure
And the truth
These words still pursue –

Not performed
But artistry made
As identity
Bared
Through experience

Of each earned
But well-meaning
Tragedy
Gleaned through loss
On repeat

To assume how
God doesn’t share
These blessings
Well
With resistance

When attention
Draws
Greater danger
While defying those
Who will play.

Whether wrong
Or successfully poor
This poetry
Heals
Every callous

Only idleness
Builds from exposure
By avoiding
Sports
They enjoy,

Planning death
Since being alive
Like our irony
Found
Seeking subtext

Watching egos
Clash
Chasing victory
Just waiting for pain
Unexpressed.

• J. Pigno

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