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

Am I ignoring
The miserable truth
How riding this pain
Keeps me going
As evidenced by
Honest feelings
Being easy to write
Once again?

Their certain demands
Are now met
Through repeated misuse
Of each memory
When twisted in thought
Always anxious
After silent retreats
Holding back

During months left alone
Having nightmares
And journaling dreams
Even better
Than any such phrase
I could conjure
Would describe before grief
Came so close

After watching my life
Still unfold
Like tattered remains
Hiding pictures
On pages we’ve torn
Fighting demons
Soon coming right back
Taking shape

Since clawing with rage
Killing blessings
Seeking solace it learned
Was too precious
For losers whose prose
Demands hardship
Where happiness means
Lacking voice

If seeing those near
Often suffer
Brings words beyond brinks
Barely voyaged
Getting high off that fall
Growing steeper
Not worried how hope
Never lands.

• J. Pigno

I remember
That old man fell
Clutching his chest
Like in movies
On a tiled floor
Where he waited
For the help which came
Far too late

Near slot machines
Louder than screams
Drowning out words
As they shouted
Watching him squirm
Feeling helpless
While we walked right past
Staring down

With police all around
Blocking pathways
Shoving us soon
Even further
Preventing one’s glance
From connecting
Under lights so bright
They had burned

Like blown-glass suns
Bearing witness
Above large crowds
Never caring
When another soul there
Just expired
Amid chaos enjoyed
Out of greed

Where another scene lost
Behind madness
Remained my fear
Grown incarnate
During leisure now killed
Watching tragedy
Mature right before
Pleasant lies

By accepting such fate
More symbolic
Since this date was ruined
Seeing sadness
Emerge through air
Lacking warning
Much how our lives
Would unfold.

• J. Pigno

I’ve abandoned
Every last friend
From the fact this pain
Keeps persisting
With each passing year
Spent neglecting
What solemn divide
Merely grows

As holidays come
Only once
Reminding how time
Pushes roughly
Against our attempts
At such happiness
Squandered by trying
Too hard

When phone calls last
Many minutes
But visits seem sad
After seconds
Feeling their lives
Appear better
And yours truly dull
If compared

While suffering still
In that place
Wearing monitors
Catching those rhythms
Reflecting my heart
Truly broken
Like insides torn
Losing faith

Grieving yesterdays
Never much loved
Though hindsight twists
Certain moments
Since memories mold
Around wishes
Connections will shape
Seeking hope

Yet finding relief
Doesn’t last
Or stem from meals
Shared together
But hardens with age
Learning peacefulness
Means silently waiting
For death.

• J. Pigno