Finding that "early psychoanalytic theory is breathtakingly poetic,",[1] at the same time that he was discovering poetry and fiction, the two disciplines became irrevocably intertwined in his work.

Piombino discusses the relationship at length in his third volume of poetry, Theoretical Objects, where he states "psychoanalysis and literature are more interrelated than is apparent.

Inspired by the "cut-up" techniques that Berrigan and Burroughs used in their writing workshops and the Merz Pictures of German artist Kurt Schwitters, he constructed collages using found materials.

Piombino began a private psychotherapy practice in 1976 and has held a number of staff positions as a social worker or psychotherapist in the New York City school system.

His first volume of poetry, titled simply Poems, was published by the Sun & Moon Press in 1988 and won an Author's Recognition Award from the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in 1992.

Piombino's essays use the discourse of psychoanalysis to discuss the role of memory, history, and narrative in the construction of a style of poetry that strives to be both non-narrative and non-referential.

Inspired by the literary journals of writers such as Cesare Pavese and Paul Valéry, Piombino began experimenting with the related forms of the manifesto and the aphorism in the 1980s.

After his return from Italy and Morocco, Piombino continued to create collages, which he describes as "visual poetry",[6] inspired by his exposure to the conceptual art movement through the work of Bernadette Mayer, Vito Acconci, and Robert Smithson.

Free Fall was exhibited as part of the Analogous Series curated by Tim Peterson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2005 and was published by Otoliths Press in 2007.