Player Library

For years, I’ve been collecting stacks of books
and made a library in my home rooms
on shelves or in the crannies and the nooks,
as treasured as some family heirlooms.

The books arranged by subject on each shelf,
for easy access anytime I’d want,
I mostly would enjoy all by myself
as nourishment within each printed font.

But now I’ve made a library whose aim
is getting us to play some fun-filled game.

The library that I’m amassing now,
unlike the one that I amassed before,
may not be scholarly, profound, highbrow,
as there’s a different purpose that it’s for:

We may or may not have an ever after
when we have slipped from life as from a tether,
but through some play we may bring fun and laughter
to now, whatever time we have together.

Not knowing where we’ll go, from where we came,
let’s share enjoyment through a fun-filled game.

Unlike book authors reaching heights of fame,
game-makers might not be as known by name,
but what they’ve given isn’t less or lame,
although it’s very different, not the same:

I found some food in fiction and in fact,
but meals in books are mostly solitary,
while games are grand for us to interact,
lightheartedly, which helps with loads we carry.

I’ve games of every kind, a smorgasbord,
like books with different kinds of paragraphs,
the online kinds or those that have a board,
with many ways for us to get some laughs.

Not knowing where we’ll go, from where we came,
let’s share enjoyment through a fun-filled game.

(𝒜𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝒾𝓂ℯ, ℴ𝓃𝓁𝒾𝓃ℯ ℊ𝒶𝓂ℯ 𝓃𝒾ℊ𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝒽ℴ𝓈𝓉ℯ𝒹 𝒷𝓎 ℒ.𝒜.ℳ.𝒫. https://www.facebook.com/groups/LAMP.LIGHT.1 𝒶𝓇ℯ 𝒮𝓊𝓃𝒹𝒶𝓎 𝓃𝒾ℊ𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓉 7 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝒾𝒶𝓃ℴ ℳ𝒶𝓃𝓉𝓇𝒶 𝓇ℴℴ𝓂 𝒶𝓉 https://www.kumospace.com/songster 𝒟𝓇ℴ𝓅-𝒾𝓃𝓈 𝓌ℯ𝓁𝒸ℴ𝓂ℯ!)

Mario A. Pita

𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻

When we were kids, we spent our time in play
with license to act crazy for our fun,
pretending we were heroes who would slay
an enemy with fingers as a gun.
Imagination was our nation, hilly,
like snow-filled slopes ideal for any sleigh,
with pinnacles of being deeply silly,
our highest purpose that of merry play.
Adulthood then snuck up, and we forsook
our playfulness, adopting in its stead
a sternness for the duties that we took,
as silliness for solemnness was shed.
We’ve lost a lot that we enjoyed before.
Let’s play as we could do when we were four.

(Some of my playing is on this page: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJbJt9pf/ )

Mario A. Pita

Question Songs

Surrounded by uncertainties, it seems
so many people claim to have the answers
for shedding light on our unknowns, like beams
that shine, disclosing darkness-hidden dancers.

But when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

The answers that I filled in all life’s blanks,
as though for some philosophy exam,
in which our souls were saved like loot in banks,
aren’t helpful in the darkness where I am.

But when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

Like lots, I thought I had life figured out
and had a license to pontificate,
yet now unsure of what it’s all about,
I feel I’m far from some enlightened state.

But when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

Technology has stunningly afforded
the gadgetry equipping us to hear
some songs across a century recorded,
even when the singers aren’t still here.

But when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

The questions may be sung in any style,
historic or what hasn’t yet been guessed,
the songs a tall, eclectic, growing pile,
with singing, questioning, a living quest.

So when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

The questions that begin with “why” or “who,”
or possibly with “where” or “when” or “how,”
or questions popped by lovers when they woo,
I long for songs with questions like these now.

Yes, when I’m lost, I don’t just want directions:
I seek some songs that overflow with questions.

Mario A. Pita

A playlist of “Question Songs”:

Living Improv

As when musicians improvise a piece,
and one arrives long after it began
and tries to fit before the music’s cease
a contribution played the best they can,
or waits with silence as their chosen part,
since for improvisation there’s no plan,
with no instruction telling when to start
or what to play for what specific span,
so we arrive at life that’s under way
and try to figure out what we can add
or just observe till what we feel’s the day
we may contribute lots or just a tad.
In life, by lots of people we’re advised,
but there’s no script: the piece is improvised.

Mario A. Pita

Cellular Farewell

In memory of Sara Garment

When I erased your number from my cell phone,
because you’d left this cellular domain,
sadness punctured through me since no bell tone
can make you answer calls, though you remain
in other realms, unreachable by cell.
There – freed from ailing cells – I pray you’re well.

*
Though you’re no longer where you can be called,
you still can be recalled – remembered –
and though by thoughts of death I am appalled,
the body’s destiny to be dismembered,
you’re remade whole again in recollections
till Love, I pray, calls us to resurrections.

*
Your voice no longer can excite the air
to vibrate out as sonic waves that foam
within another’s hearing – far from there
through mechanistic magic of a phone.
Your soul can’t use a phone sold at a store
but sends dream ripples from another shore.

*
Apparently my childhood form is gone,
most cells replaced since youth with frequency:
they daily die in billions, daily spawn,
yet somehow after cell swaps I’m still me,
feeling there’s more to us than cells, replaced:
though all your cells be gone, you’re not erased.

*
Cells are prison rooms and phones as well.
Connected cells can form a human being.
Confined to mortal cells, we’re apt to dwell
on them as jails. A certain thought is freeing:
we can connect without a cellular plan,
and even without cell phones we still can.

*
I’ve wondered at the root of all despair
and felt that it most stems from disconnection:
although there’s much in life that we can share,
we’re each a separate cellular collection.
Cells connect souls yet confine them too,
and now that yours are gone I’m missing you.

*
Your birthday was the last time that we spoke.
I didn’t know that talk would be the last
before your cellular connections broke
as to another realm your spirit passed.
I wished you then a happy birthday. Now
I hope you’re happy somewhere else, somehow.

*
In ancient times, when I turned twenty three
and found myself immersed a year in hell,
I sat and cried beside a fenced-in tree,
before a telephone was called a cell.
You were a stranger then, out for a run,
and stopped to try to help – angelic one.

*
In cells, a voice or picture can be saved,
to be displayed or heard another time,
and in my memory is still engraved
especially one image that’s sublime:
the first I saw of you, the look you gave me,
of care when I was sure no one could save me.

*
Since cellular connections can be poor
and cells are rigged to sicken and expire,
we suffer limitations, needing more
for contacting without a cell or wire:
our cell connections, destined to be ended,
can be, as you evinced, in love transcended.

*
A cellular nostalgia wouldn’t be
a fitting way of paying tribute to
the precious and tenacious memory
of such a special friend. Recalling you,
I want to try and pay a fitting tribute
with beauty to the world I may contribute.

*
Your sweetness, wisdom, humor, courage, care,
ineffable and much-missed qualities,
aren’t cell-tied any more: they’re everywhere
that we who love you harbor memories,
till we in turn transcend our finite cells
and greet you – hopefully – beyond farewells.

Mario A. Pita

Galactic Solace

For Abuela, Rosa Padron

My daughter’s expression before her first breath
recalled my grandmother’s before her last:
their grimaces of traumas – birth and death –
haunt me still from in the dimming past.

But then my daughter found her mother’s breast
where throes of womb-expulsion swiftly passed,
and hopefully my grandmother found rest
in the cosmic mother’s Milky Way, as fast.

Mario A. Pita

Perennial Student

Mario A. Pita

Gallery Call

Please show me your body, I mean your body of work,
collecting some pieces you’ve painted, etched, drawn,
whatever you’ve done in your life that may lurk
in closeted boxes, forgotten, nearly gone,
or works you’ve shared around the world or shown
to handfuls of people, or possibly a pet,
pieces through which you may be partly known,
by even someone whom you’ve never met.
Please show me your body of work as gallery,
curated, assembled, like cells in a body of flesh,
your works that enrich, or nourish, or free,
or do whatever in a way that’s fresh.
Please show me your body of work, and I will stare
in thankful wonder regarding your body you share.

Mario A. Pita

People Labels

Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew,
all labels peel off since there’s more to you.
You’re labelled by your ancestry or hue,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.
You’re labelled by your wealth or job you do,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.
You’re labelled by your sex and preference too,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.
You’re labelled sharply by your point of view,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.
Some labels look appealing when brand new,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.
You’re branded as if by a skin tattoo,
but labels peel off since there’s more to you.

Divisiveness and hatred which are sick
have come from making people labels stick.
This harmful, awful illness will be through
when we repeal all labels for what’s true…

You’re someone yet nobody can say who.
All labels peel off since there’s more to you.

Mario A. Pita

Dear Arlington

You’re not the famous one where soldiers are
interred, and honored on a holiday,
but you’re my home and in my eyes a star,
the place I raised my daughter and she’d play…

in charming playgrounds by the biking trail,
surrounded by a wealth of greenery,
where I have gone through joy and through travail
amidst your gorgeousness of scenery.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
a nest, a gem, of happiness pursuit.

I’ve strolled through nearly every street of yours
and crystallized your beauty in a frame,
like tourists do with cameras on tours
of cities of world stature and great fame.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
with photographs, instead of guns, to shoot.

I’ve loved your gardens and your blooms in pots,
although to me most planters are unknown,
their varied stories with their twists of plots,
their lives like mine or different from my own.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where flower fashions top the finest suit.

While often with my struggles I have wrestled,
I’ve loved to stroll your lovely tree-lined roads,
and seeing homes in little forests nestled
has lightened with some loveliness life’s loads.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
of harmony with nature we pollute.

The library that’s in your center has
for years been like a second home to me,
so full of treasures I could rarely pass
without a visit or a peek to see.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where they can borrow treasures, free of loot.

As nowhere in the world is perfect, you
aren’t perfect—seeming priced for king or queen:
compared to pay for most jobs people do,
your rent and cost of living are obscene.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
without a fear of ending destitute.

With everything that’s needed close at hand,
you’re haven of convenience, peace, and ease,
here where supply most often meets demand,
unlike some places, near or overseas.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where no one falls and lacks a parachute.

Although you’re full of nature, you aren’t far
from Boston, dubbed hub of the universe,
by bus and train, or bicycle, or car,
without a zillion miles to traverse.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
without exhaust-filled hours to commute.

Although your school’s excel, they sorely lack
diversity my daughter much preferred,
with few from other countries, brown or black,
a melting pot of different colors stirred.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where people of all colors bear much fruit.

Your houses are of multicolored hues,
from lavenders and yellows, greens, and pink,
greys, and reds, and varied shades of blues,
with sky, and blooms, and foliage in sync.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
where colors range from loud to soft to mute.

I’ve stared at architecture mixed with verdure
while strolling by your houses’ flights of stairs
and felt its ordered stillness reassure
in times of frequent escalating scares.

May all have such a dear hometowns to take root,
that soothe through troubles, chronic and acute.

Of nearly fifty thousand residents,
I’m well acquainted only with a few,
a minuscule point zero…..one percent
and wish that there were more of them I knew.

May all have such dear hometowns to take root,
of people value no one can compute.

Because you’re beautiful beyond dispute,
May all have such dear hometowns to take root….

An online album of photographs of Arlington is available here.

A booklet with the “Dear Arlington” text and more photos is available here

Mario A. Pita