Many vagabonds
Count their sins
In the parking lots
Outside strip malls

Taking each stone
For one blessing
Ruined by a chance
Never had

Across asphalt
Littered with rocks
Representing loss
Better questioned

By God Himself
Feeling ruthless
Turning fate so wrong
Overnight

Where they fail last shots
Under awnings
Facing evening’s cold
Growing desperate

Letting passersby
Give them glances
Before reaching back
Grabbing cash

Seeing neon signs
Slowly fade
While driving away
Always leaving

Taking luxury cars
Over distance
So far enough now
We forget

And hearing my wife
Merely whisper
Just jot it all down
Or remember

Certain faces
Proving that gospel
Keeping truth by bags
Become beds

How perhaps sometimes
I still write
Since only this pen
Ever answers

When seeming deep down
Very homeless
Despite trying too hard
To ignore.

• J. Pigno

I pray that
You’ll never know
These waiting rooms
Better than spaces
Where happier times
Stay remembered
While their emptiness
Swallows me whole

As another day
Filling with grief
Claims this gasping faith
Merely clinging
Onto fading dreams
Barely breathing
When facing doors
Always closed

Hearing doctors
Offer some speech
Even science can’t prove
Like religion
Lacking any such name
But a gospel
Assumed to be real
Though it fails

Letting anger
Throw off my pulse
Skipping heartbeats
Missing all purpose
Losing rhythm
Sadder than feelings
Held between screams
Never heard

Until agony
Kills what persists
Through futile hope
Now remaining
Around those we love
Chasing circles
Pushing back
Against every attempt

Yet believing
Change can occur
Despite repeats
Ruling existence
From fearful nights
Facing symptoms
For mornings
Greeting them still.

• J. Pigno

These are the days
Uncertain
Which separates truth
From ambition
And demands of souls
Their intentions
Outside what work
Can achieve

By victory
Clouding each way
That allows such hope
Turning dangerous
Through successes
Grown ever doubtful
When contentment
Passes for God

Forgetting how faith
Must begin
Where life gives way
Under pressures
As pain itself
Offers substance
Beyond false worlds
Fear creates

If connecting death
With belief
Like our coming fate
Soon surrendered
To some pretense
Weaker than feelings
Still mutually lost
Being pushed

Against madness
Love shouldn’t guess
Since heaven’s test
Means persisting
Despite those tears
Nearly pouring
After learning time
Never waits

Yet encourages
Failing so hard
Always savoring
Moments forgotten
Through memories
Better accepted
Forgetting now
Should exist.

• J. Pigno

Here’s a poem
Without any reader
Or purpose beyond
Seeming vacant
Of any such hope
Worth engaging
Left inside these words
Being said

To extend their reach
Over meaning
Where beauty resides
Feeling doubtful
If between each line
Trying harder
There is nothing
But anger instead

While the sadness
Grows so unruly
Always needing
Another disaster
When inspired verse
Quickly tires
From appropriate dreams
Never met

Through expression
Lacking all faith
But seizing forms
Merely leaping
Over longer spans
Getting questioned
By my reckless thoughts
Seeking God

Whose damning voice
Only edits
Since our blatant truths
Remain sinful
Still appearing wrong
Like a subtext
Between phrases
Honestly lost

Ever echoing
Judgments implied
Yet afraid how pain
Offers penance
Even better than hope
Hardly noticed
Just attempting art
Yet again.

• J. Pigno

I’m afraid
We’ve gone far enough
From those days once soaked
In tie-dye
Beyond how faith
Should secure us
For a time not lived
But endured

Among old threats
Newly learned
Still gray as their fears
Have indebted
Each soul waging wars
Only battled
Upon colorless paths
We all know

Where experience
Falls under guns
Losing poetry
Facing these bullets
Seeking humanness
Suffering greatly
Begging one last chance
To connect

Before fighting
Can claim what is left
Since our work
Still vaguely determines
Whose hope
Remains most forgiving
Seeing beauty
While watching it burn

Until God
Replaces that need
If art proves weak
When believing
True love might ruin
Every ending
Now somehow thought
Always wrong

Since the feeling
Despite being bright
Only fosters hurt
So apparent
Dreaming death
May hold better places
Here at home
Or further away.

• J. Pigno

These words
Are my second lease

As all art
Is an unknown constant

In a life which thrives
On monotony
Soon disturbed
By beauty unseen,

Where backseats
Narrate this dream
Just seeing outside
Become vessels

After witnessing sights
Still enduring
Like industrial towns
Growing old –

Now awake
Behind faded facades,

But hidden from glass
Partly shattered,

Obscuring what past
Appears sleeping
Though it echoes
Between empty walls

How history speaks
Secret breaths
Concealing our truths
Rarely painted

Except through lines
Seizing moments
Across canvas
Poetically stroked.

Can experience
Color our brush
Enough for each term
To hold meaning,

Awaiting that muse
Always wishing
Another good phrase
Might exist?

Inspiration
Never quite lasts

While such time
Forces real feelings,

If fearing death
Like those landmarks

Yet preserved
When capturing verse.

• J. Pigno

All my dreams
End in ER visits

Watching loved ones
Fall where I’m standing,

Always knowing somehow
This will happen

Despite trying so long
To avoid –

Determined as fate
Still appears,

Pressing tile on face
Before seeing

Just another bad fear
Become living

And tangibly cruel
While they last.

Who is God
When accidents wait

Behind shadows
Lurking through daylight,

Tracing demons
Randomly summoned

Over silhouettes
Having our face –

These shapeless forms
Making passes

At killing each hope
Morning carries

Despite sunlight’s gleam
During moments

Nothing awful can show
Till it does,

Hearing mom hit hard
Upon porcelain

Or dad lay flat
Across floorboards

Kissing ground from age
Inescapable

While their son cries
Lifting them up.

That kitchen just
Echoes old screams

Louder than laughs
Never promised,

But sacredly held
Within memories

Growing fewer
Like prayers truly felt.

• J. Pigno

The power of
Sending prayers,

Like another
Poor excuse,

Driving us all
Towards limits

Yet again
Off some old bridge.

A few but
Subtle reminders,

One quick
Yet grave mistake,

An expression that fades
Through echoes

But a body
Soon long gone

With a soul still here
In headlines
From papers
Always invisible –

How do we make
That comparison
Or choose such
Stagnant leaps?

Complicit in
Wasted time,

Begging for sex
As usual,

Losing hearing
Like honest meaning
After leaving
Better songs on blast.

It’s ringing
If we still care,

Haunting bedrooms
Stale as silence.

Seems fitting
When spinning old records
With no rhythm
Or sight of relief –

Not even
One last hurrah
Just agony
From louder warnings,

Notes by screams
Kept quiet

But trailing off low
Until death.

A needle scrapes now
Over vinyl,

Popping and hissing
Unnoticed,

Often felt inside
While we’re scratching
What trackless groove
Must remain.

Tinnitus
By that final measure
Reminds me
Why I keep playing

When such sickness
Lifts feet higher

So glad my sound
Doesn’t end.

• J. Pigno

There is no peace
In inheriting
A tax on our soul
Never promised
When committing each sin
Unintentional
Against this dream
Poorly held

How being alive
Shouldn’t feel
While aspiring low
Getting nowhere
Needing dead men’s gifts
Always better
Than that doctor’s pill
Makes you feel

Despite suffering loss
After trying
With avoidance
Or some other gimmick
Besides offfering work
Towards redemption
So hollow like grief
Earning cash

Barely mourning all those
Who had left it
Missing every chance
At achieving
Since success still remains
Too appealing
For few gone mad
Seeking truth

Fighting crazier whims
Writing poems
Through engaging lies
Burning papers
Once inspired by books
During high school
When words would stir
Younger hearts

Now old from turns
Losing battles
Facing enemies learned
Are inside us
Soon defeating lines
Merely tracing
Heaven’s message
Across what remains.

• J. Pigno

We’re all just
Creatively bankrupt
In a world whose belief
Fosters nothing
But witnessing scenes
More traumatic
Than the ones our art
Could depict

Like someone else
Jumping from bridges
Never noticing lives
Fallen desperate
Still staring down leaps
Hardly knowing
How deep their despair
Must become

Finding hope
Beyond any meaning
Facing empty days
Always working
Growing silent
When courting disaster
Lost among their thoughts
Feeling numb

With nowhere to turn
But relief
By avoiding tasks
Still repeating
As they validate fears
Always twisted
Undermining God
If He’s there

Until papers
Avoid every truth
Wishing headlines
Offered us answers
Where souls unknown
Endure punishment
Those authorities swear
Were deserved

Despite warnings
Waiting at home
Conveniently missed
Through avoiding
Such beautiful prayers
Feigning ignorance
Pouring money on top
Open wounds.

• J. Pigno