It’s the fear
That keeps me believing
Despite what proof
Remains distant
Knowing prayer feels numb
Seeming needy
Even if an answer
Should come

Just begging out loud
For some more
Still seeking God’s hand
Always missing
While watching faith die
On these smartphones
Letting wars wage on
Without help

Going live now soon
Gaining viewers
Seeing hate take sides
So persistent
Until every last soul
Can’t distinguish
Which evil has won
Over good

Like a relative voice
Casting doubts
Since shedding its truth
Always changing
Sending echoes across
Gaping chasms
Between crumbling worlds
Falling in

Where emptier voids
Swallow whole
Such miracles lost
Facing demons
Who resemble their own
Fleeing darkness
Judging humans by blood
Sadly shared

Deep beneath this flesh
Growing raw
After fighting ourselves
Never caring
How all life’s creeds
Demand service
Rewarded through love
We attempt.

• J. Pigno

Downstairs
Near the basement boiler
Where my childhood toys
Stayed hidden
Stood a shadowy man
In that nightmare
Whose scarlet coat
Appeared burned

Sporting rags
He’d apparently torn
While breaking inside
Seeking playthings
Still lighting each fuse
On some fireworks
Aiming loaded shells
At their face

Soon waking me up
With those bangs
And rattling walls
Shooting embers
Nearly charring his beard
As they fired
Raining sparks over floors
Just below

Between concrete walls
Storing bins
Across plastic lids
Along shelving
Throwing fiery stars
Kindling trinkets
Losing faith
We so preciously kept

Scorching all
Showing little remains
Leaving no other gift
But reflections
Of memories caught
Inside boxes
Become dancing flames
After dark

Now teddy bears charred
During dreams
Next to mangled trains
Always smoking
Every Christmas Eve
Fearing Santa
Will return what light
He once brought.

• J. Pigno

They’ll remember me
Not by these words
But the fact that I dared
To be jobless
And remain unknown
Still on purpose
Except by those few
Who might care

As most would proclaim
How insane
A man must appear
Staying nameless
Without any such proof
He existed
Or value unearned
While alive

Defined through eyes
Left behind
Describing real ills
Like they’re praises
Of an anxious soul
Misinterpreted
For what lies hurt more
Than each fear

Denying deep pain
Very true
Where phrases alone
Revealed sickness
Turned daily relief
Into poetry
After failing so long
Fighting back

Against symptoms
Never quite gone
Despite seconds between
Yielding respite
When writing down thoughts
Growing dangerous
If calling out art
Far less bold

Never worried
Since someone might read
His beliefs unrestrained
Even stranger
Always seeking their ear
Merely willing
Getting radically changed
Before long.

• J. Pigno

Why bother
With talentless words
Which pale when compared
To those feelings
Once seized long ago
On such papers
That were so very real
Being young?

Now knowing
There’s nobody left
Has revealed they’re lost
Like a story
That I never could tell
Always dreaming
If an audience cared
Just to hear.

For my poems exist
All alone
Inside this screen
Growing smaller
Like better souls blessed
Truly gifted
But discovered too late
When online

Since internet fame
Never lasts
Or becomes how hope
Kills our meaning
While pandering hard
Begging readers
For chances sought
Barely earned

Failing eyes
Squandered by math
Catching random fates
Hardly witnessed
Beneath scrolling lines
Hiding lifetimes
Deliberately placed
Under dates

Where their context
Explains every phrase
Still hidden behind
Anonymity
Now our double-edged sword
Claiming victory
Over honest souls
Sharing heart.

• J. Pigno

Last night
My wife saw me crying
While falling asleep
Watching TV
From an old cartoon
I had treasured
Enjoying with mom
Every year

As the characters sang
About innocence
And believing in things
We can’t witness
But love even more
Than what’s tangible
Like all great times
Which have passed

Just killing me now
Looking backwards
Missing those days
On our couches
Feeling so sick
Yet excited
When sharing that time
Spent alone

One Christmas Eve
Long ago
Being merely content
Hearing music
Claymation dolls
Would exhibit
On analog screens
Humming low

Knowing how youth
Barely lasts
Soon fearing each age
Still before us
Awaiting God’s threat
Always counting
Towards something worse
Never clear

That December brings
Much too close
Where veils thin more
Between memories
Echoing loud
Over futures
This present agrees
May not come.

• J. Pigno

In my dreams
I always see shipwrecks
Which appear like threats
Underwater
As emerging wraiths
Out of blackness
With their rusty steel
Still obscured

Beyond portholes
Fogged from our breathing
Now lost between gasps
Getting deeper
After witnessing hell
Consume meaning
Through its absent light
Lacking words

Missing form
Or accurate details
Even God Himself
Can’t interpret
But hide well outside
Heaven’s vision
Leaving shapes so dark
Better lost

Leading buried lives
Never noticed
Where time doesn’t pass
For those specters
Now caught between death
And existence
Fading slower than fear
Will allow

Until somehow
Sleep takes us back
Watching empty decks
Corrode faster
Collapsed beneath floors
Too unstable
Housing numerous haunts
Growing mad

When intruding here
Seeking reasons
Knowing no such soul
Finds an answer
Asking questions once
About purpose
Symbolically sunk
Far below.

• J. Pigno

These Christmas cards
Make me sick
As it hurts to admit
They’re reminders
Of everything good
So intangible
For those still plagued
Here and now

When today must sting
Even worse
After seeing friends’ lives
Nearly perfect
Despite what flaws
Remain hidden
Behind winter scenes
Caught in time

On colorful sheets
Surely blinding
With their fakest grins
Always beaming
While mocking my truth
Much less brighter
Than sunshine believed
Better shared

Since loss doesn’t stretch
Over distance
Created by age
Soon expected
Where kids yield jobs
Like religions
Only money can breed
During sex

If your past means less
Seeking futures
Finding sterile success
Beneath failures
Far from that lie
Believed nature
Every poem depicts
Fighting back

Admitting how pain
Frees us once
Before loneliness
Speaks now forever
Against silence
Family is missing
Demanding we keep
Talking small.

• J. Pigno

I’m afraid
This will only get worse
As complacency breeds
True inaction
Than striving for change
Near impossible
Only effortless prayers
Never grasp

Being better off sought
When agreeing
How our suffering sings
Even louder
Despite what noise
Drowns these symptoms
In a mournful shame
Barely heard

Behind talking heads
Making speeches
On their constant screens
Still distracting
Such confident souls
Sounding whistles
To stop this game
Always dumb

Blaming everyone else
But themselves
Or society’s hate
Which perpetuates
Over money and guns
Taking precedence
While yelling at God
They need more

Barely sorrowful
Burying dead
But refusing how greed
Is that sickness
Just watching decay
Claim the bodies
Of spiritual rot
Called success

Citing freedom
Behind every kill
While mandating lives
So unequal
Soon pushing each side
Towards aggression
Quickly silencing
Those who rebel.

• J. Pigno

It’s hard to accept
Every ache
And a mirror with
Overnight changes
When the days themselves
Become static
Like another lost soul
Going numb

Where nothing exists
Beyond sameness
As dreams once held
Appear monochrome
Against colorful lives
Getting younger
Comparing those paints
Far apart

On our canvas
Smaller than God
Now contained in flesh
Claustrophobic
Beneath finite stars
Growing faded
Like these darkened streaks
Below eyes

Whose jagged folds
Tell their stories
About seeking love
Over lifetimes
Enduring each threat
Heaven dangles
Through illness and death
Always near

Since agony comes
Even quicker
Despite what attempts
Remain desperate
Making money for work
Never ending
Just so torture evades
Feeling whole

Meaning little but fear
Called success
Denies this truth
More hilarious
How human belief
Merely placates
Being born
Though we’re already old.

• J. Pigno

I can’t get away
From these feelings
Which change on a dime
Without reason
Other than mocking
What fortitude
It takes to exist
Every day

Or even attempt
Despite knowing
How blessings become
Sore reminders
Of moments not seized
Facing illness
These doctors agree
Is made up

Despite how they last
During calmness
Ruining quiet retreats
Between bedsheets
While holding my wife
Battling hardship
Still far more intense
Than this pain

Whose health can improve
Only praying
Her husband may thrive
Beyond waiting
For suffering’s end
We both witness
At night in our dreams
Holding hands

Since having such hope
Appears worthy
As these tested years
Should expire
Learning happiness
Naturally blossoms
Once accepting that dirt
Underneath

Where circumstance sits
Asking questions
Perhaps God only knows
Lacks an answer
Watching humans endure
Further torture
Soon believing sometime
They’ll escape.

• J. Pigno