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

You can’t see stars
In New York
As its lights obscure
Heaven’s limit
From below that sky
Hiding midnight
Far beyond my town
Never dark

And too damn bright
With belief
Not for God Himself
But ambition
Which fails such truth
Seeking answers
So explicitly said
Looking up

When our evening bears
Better gifts
Than another attempt
At existing
By scouring streets
Always glowing
Until blindness kills
Every hope

Wishing dreams
Just didn’t need cash
Where we work through pain
Meaning gambles
By money again
Taking precedence
Over a moment’s breath
Being free

Sharing art
Like prophets untold
Crushing souls
Whose poems ascended
Right besides dim moons
Growing richer
While dying down here
Seeming poor

Until madness
Offers escape
Swept away now quick
Driving further
Towards their one last chance
Finding faithfulness
Off those highways
Saints only know.

• J. Pigno

I am tired
Of wordless plays
And these scenes
In an empty theater
On days left dark
Writing speeches
Still for silent parts
Unsaid

With emotions
More contrived
Or acts held down
Truly grieving
While believing things
Not mentioned
Still deserve such lines
Get told

By pretending
Some might hear
If conveying truth
Unnoticed
When its dialogue feels
Only natural
Knowing poetry
Never quite sells

Many seats
Like faking this dance
Under stage lights bright
Needing tickets
To watch some lie
Fail completely
So that honest voice
Has their chance

Where the loudest mouth
Is produced
Since exception stems
From each stutter
Over music loud
As distractions
Can deceive who speaks
What redeems

Through achieving dreams
Always hushed
Despite learning art
Defies business
Being humbled now
After shouting
Over crowds engaged
Seeing stars.

• J. Pigno