Perspectives

A hand that seems to prop a leaning tower,
a girl who holds the sun as though a ball,
as if equipped with superhuman power
to carry it just like a thing that’s small.

A couple seemingly inside a shoe,
a ruler used for measuring the moon,
a star atop a crescent-shaped canoe,
a plane ascending from a wee cocoon…

Reality is stretched through forced perspective,
but we can see the truth since we’re perceptive.

A setting sun that’s kicked as if in soccer,
a kitten leaping from a lofty wire,
a foot appearing larger than a walker,
a candle flame that seems a raging fire…

A cloud disguised as ice cream in a cone,
the moon blown like a bubble from a horn,
a stream that seems to flow out of a phone,
a world no bigger than an ear of corn…

Reality is stretched through forced perspective,
but we can see the truth since we’re perceptive.

In photographs, perspectives that are forced,
as when someone appears to hold the sun,
are cool though from reality divorced,
and may be humorous and lots of fun,

but forced perspectives in our minds and views
may not be like the kinds in photographs,
which with surprise and cleverness amuse,
inciting suffering instead of laughs.

Reality is stretched through forced perspective,
but we can see the truth since we’re perceptive.

Wonder Return

Our childhoods left us with loads of trauma,
although we weren’t aware of it back then:
I’d land toy spaceships in a diorama,
and you wrote eighty pen pals with your pen.

Yet trauma which we carried would explode,
like lightning in our synapses, and thunder,
and each of us has felt we would implode
beneath the crushing anguish we were under.

We didn’t meet till we were fully grown,
until a ton of woes had made us groan.
Together now with all that we’ve withstood,
my love, let’s have a happy childhood.

Though past and present woes can weigh a ton
and we feel lost as though within a maze,
we can, like playful fledglings, still have fun
and with a sense of wonder be amazed.

We didn’t meet till we were fully grown,
until a ton of woes had made us groan.
Together now with all that we’ve withstood,
my love, let’s have a happy childhood.

We can’t return to ages that we’ve been
and wouldn’t want to do that anyhow,
but child-like fresh wonder can begin,
and with it we return from woe to wow.

We didn’t meet till we were fully grown,
until a ton of woes had made us groan.
Together now with all that we’ve withstood,
my love, let’s have a happy childhood.

Song from Songbird Love Songs

Mario A. Pita

Human Chasm

A chasm yawns between us. It’s my grief
that our relation ship has struck a reef,
and time is running out as life is brief.

Although it’s running out, it isn’t chased:
we’re sticking to our stories as with paste,
so chance to share and cherish goes to waste.

I mourn the severing of our lost tether.
I hope for rope to pull us two together.

We’re each in our own world, on our own planet,
and whether it’s of gas or it’s of granite,
of giant size or small as pomegranate,

We don’t know how to heal the swelling chasm
that opened suddenly as in a spasm
and drained our bond of its enthusiasm.

I mourn the severing of our lost tether.
I hope for rope to pull us two together.

It may be that we have become estranged
because my mind has grown a bit deranged,
because beliefs and circumstances changed.

Whatever be the reason for the split,
the tragic drama, not comedic skit,
the chasm widened from a narrow slit…

I mourn the severing of our lost tether.
I hope for rope to pull us two together.

Mario A. Pita

Floral Care

The flowers that I plant each have a card,
pushed in the soil or stuck on the pot,
so that the floral care won’t be too hard
as they take root within the garden plot.

Instructions tell me how much light it needs,
the water it requires not to dry,
what time of year and where to plant the seeds,
so it can flourish, not just freeze or fry.

You’ve got no care instructions like a blossom.
How may I nurture you who are so awesome?

Your likes, dislikes, the things that help you grow,
the things to be avoided and that nourish.
Through time and all you tell I want to know,
like rain and sunlight make a flower flourish.

You’ve got no care instructions like a blossom.
How may I nurture you who are so awesome?

Mario A. Pita

Illusions

Our eyes play tricks on us, and we can tell
because we know of optical illusions:
our educated minds alert us well,
so we won’t dumbly jump to false conclusions.

Our minds can tell us when our eyes are fooled
and keep us thus from falling for a trick,
but in what manner may our minds be schooled
when fooled by thought illusions that are thick?

𝘞𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘬;
𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘯’𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬.

As eyes play tricks on us, our minds do too:
we’ve noticed when we thought that we were right
and learned that something else instead was true,
our ignorance enlightened, turning bright.

𝘞𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘬;
𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘯’𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬.

While thoughts can often be a helpful tool,
experience shows they also can deceive;
but like an optical illusion doesn’t fool,
we won’t be fooled by thoughts we don’t believe.

𝘞𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘬;
𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘯’𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬.

Floating Bubbles Optical Illusion by Gianni Sarcone, https://www.giannisarcone.com/

Mario A. Pita

Afterlife

For long, I’d felt as if my life were over,
although my heart continued with its beat,
as if I should be buried under clover
beneath the heavy tread of passing feet.

I felt like I’d been slain as with a knife,
but you feel like my heavenly afterlife.

My epitaph, it seemed, was etched in stone
that soon would be above me in the grass,
before a light which through a tunnel shone,
when dreams appeared all shattered as if glass.

I felt like I’d been slain as with a knife,
but you feel like my heavenly afterlife.

My inner state was echoed in the world,
which seemed upon the verge of its demise,
before its spin as round the sun it twirled
raised me from blues to blueness in your eyes.

I felt like I’d been slain as with a knife,
but you feel like my heavenly afterlife.

Mario A. Pita

Planetary Ailment

A million species soon may go extinct
because of humankind of which I’m part,
a new one gone for every time we’ve blinked,
as if struck by our toxic, fatal dart.

Yet rarely do we fret about their fate,
though it may be one that we also face.
The shock of dire prospects starts to fade
as we take over at a breakneck pace.

Since when we wrote on stone or on papyrus,
we’ve come so far, but are we now Earth’s virus?

Instead, we fret for our economy,
or whether we are reaching our growth goals,
or how things are for solely you or me,
salvation for our own immortal souls.

Since when we wrote on stone or on papyrus,
we’ve come so far, but are we now Earth’s virus?

We’re wonderful in many varied ways,
begetting beauty, love, and thoughtful depth,
but for the things we have, it’s Earth which pays.
Can we stop being harbingers of death?

Since when we wrote on stone or on papyrus,
we’ve come so far, but are we now Earth’s virus?

New England Aquarium, Boston, MA

Mario A. Pita

Facing Music

When you were little, I played you a song,
of prettiness, of how it will run out,
the way a flower doesn’t last for long,
the way it’s not what life is all about.

I wanted to instill from early on
the sense there’s more to you than how you look,
for when the looks of youthfulness are gone,
when time has stolen them since it’s a crook.

As prettiness runs out, you needn’t chase it.
There’s Music in you, beautiful to face it.

The genes your parents gave combined to make
the looks that catch the eyes of many men,
with makeup as the frosting on a cake,
but you have wished to rate more than a ten.

A beauty mark was banished from your face,
and mountains made of hills with silicone,
but plastics can’t stall long time’s hectic pace
with artificial bits that aren’t your own.

As prettiness runs out, you needn’t chase it.
There’s Music in you, beautiful to face it.

You may not listen now to what I sing,
while you pursue imported goals of glamour,
now while your life is in its early spring
and hormone surges in your bloodstream clamor.

But may you know without a cold wind’s sting,
without some hard times hitting like a hammer,
without your being used as some guy’s fling,
you’re more than looks that might get men to stammer.

As prettiness runs out, you needn’t chase it.
There’s Music in you, beautiful to face it.

Mario A. Pita

Mattering

My thoughts and feelings I considered deep
were once the most important thing to me:
I thought they were from heaven which would seep
within my mind, unfathomed as a sea.

But more than anything in my gray matter,
whatever convolutions fill my mind,
you matter to me, more than mental chatter,
with you in front of me and it behind.

Cut-off from my long-standing vibrant sense
of realms beyond the seen, afflicted world,
I’ve felt myself as full of angst and tense,
opaque to life itself as it’s unfurled.

But more than anything in my gray matter,
whatever convolutions fill my mind,
you matter to me, more than mental chatter,
with you in front of me and it behind.

You’ve been a ray that pierces through the gray
and lights a life which has been overcast,
and though aboard a thought I go astray,
I come to you, returning home at last.

But more than anything in my gray matter,
whatever convolutions fill my mind,
you matter to me, more than mental chatter,
with you in front of me and it behind.

Mario A. Pita

Connectivity

Like lamps in need of current from a socket,
through deep connection we illuminate
and rise to higher realms as on a rocket,
though disconnection seems a common fate.

Detached, with often heavy weights to lug,
we’re seeking for connection, like a cord
that needs a power source in which to plug,
a source we’ve felt we can’t find or afford.

Let’s ease the disconnection that’s our plight.
Connecting, with each other, let’s make light.

Now you and I may not be electricians,
may not know much of circuitry and wires,
may often view each other with suspicions,
may worry we could start electric fires,

But we could light like stellar constellations,
like skies of stars connected as if dots,
creating heavenly illuminations
appearing powered by a zillion watts.

Let’s ease the disconnection that’s our plight.
Connecting, with each other, let’s make light.

Connections that go wrong can be revolting,
and they aren’t riveted by iron bolts,
so if they break apart it can be jolting,
electrocution-like with zapping volts.

But if we miss the chance we may not make
the light by which our lives on Earth are lit,
the connectivity for which we ache,
and reach the current which enables it.

Let’s ease the disconnection that’s our plight.
Connecting, with each other, let’s make light.

Mario A. Pita