A RAGE POEM ON THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE

SCREAM: A MAGUINDANAO DIRGE*

She lost her rubber slippers in the mud when
Crackling mayhem scuttled their march to town
Ripping through their roaring revelry riding
East of the searing sun: Ibagsak si Ampatuan!
Alive and raucous in their raspy throats, the raw
Mantra of venceremos quickly turned to wailing:

“She was on her way to the village school,
Carrying a new pair of shoes from her mother,
Rosa, who is an OFW in the States! Pobresita,
Eleanor, she needed clean shoes for the prom;
And, O, she laughed about our ragtag band
Marching to a funeral tune, its sole anthem beat.”

She will not find Simeon where she has gone,
Cut down, head cracked, and curled like a limp
Rag doll that could have been whipped away
Even from the tightest hold of a pining swain
Anxious and waiting in the now unlit schoolyard
Marking their first embrace in a lost last dance.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, April 29, 2010

* This poem is in collaborative response to the invitation to express rage over the Maguindanao Massacre, November 2009.

Illustration: Edvard Munch's "Scream".

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IF: AN EARTH DAY POEM

AN EARTH DAY POEM: IF

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,/And life is too much like a pathless wood.../I’d like to get away from earth a while/And then come back to it and begin over.../...Earth’s the right place for love:/I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. --- Robert Frost, Birches


1.

If you marvelled at the dance of the Northern Lights
Counterpointing the smouldering plumes of ashen smoke
Billowing out of an Eyjafjallajokull cradled by melting glacier,

Or quietly scanned the opal horizons of Banda Aceh swathed
In a glorious sunset chiaroscuro before the waves claimed
Atolls and infants back into the rip tide roar of that tsunami;

If you were ambushed by an unforgiving temblor that rocked
Haiti out of its romping in reggae regaled beaches turned
Into common graveyards of carrion crushed under rubble;

If you have walked through cherry-blossom-strewn streets
And smiled at strangers’ hallooing: How about this spring?
Before rampaging twister funnels crushed hearths and homes;

If you have strolled and danced ragtime beat on Orleans’
Roadhouses rocking rampant with rap and razzmatazz
Before Katrina’s wrath wreaked hell’s hurricane havoc;

If you braved the stygian stink of Ilog Pasig and sang songs
While harvesting floating tulips, debris, or stray crayfish
For some foregone repast before it turned into River Styx;

If you have lived through these and now blow fanfare
For Earth’s being the right place for love or maybe care,
You might yet begin to accept that mother’s lullabies were
Also her gnashing of teeth when you wailed through nights
When slumber would have allowed her love not tantrums
Of infants grown now and “quartered in the hands of war”:


2.

How else explain the wrath of days descending
Not into quietness but pain? Has she not kept her anger
In check for all the tantrums of the Ages: Thermopylae,
Masada, Ilium, Pompeii? Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Nagasaki?
Stalin’s pogroms? The death chambers and Holocaust trains?
Polpot’s killing fields in Kampuchea? Rwanda’s genocide?
Before it lured tourist trekkers, the verboten Walls of China?
The Berlin Wall? The Gaza Wall? Fences of n.i.m.b.y.
Neighbours: India and Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, splintered
Korea, the Irelands shorn of the emerald isles, the fractured
United Kingdom where the sun has finally set on its Empire,
The still hemorrhaging American southern states crippled
And still unyoked from black history but seething now
From the African-American’s irascible entitlement ---
With Obama on the rise, they will overcome someday. Soon.


3.

Has it gone any better? Love on this piece of terra infirma?
The man crucified on Golgotha preached love,
And he got killed.
Free the enslaved black man, he cried in Gettysburg,
And he got killed.
The loincloth-clad man asked for non-violent resistance,
And he got killed.
Another Gandhi later, the distaff side, asked for peace,
And she got killed.
The man got his people to the moon, and said:
Ask not what your country can do for you;
Ask what you can do for your country.
And he got killed.
I have a dream. He said that equality of races will ring true,
And he got killed.
Exiled and returning to forge a conscience for his people,
He said the “Filipino is worth dying for”.
And he got killed.


4.

That’s when mother shushed you back to sleep,
An impatient rhythm clipping away what should have been
A gently lulling melody from the Song of Ages:
Rock-a-bye, baby on the treetop; when the wind blows,
The cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle
Will fall; and down will come baby, cradle, and all.
The bough breaks, and you scream. Too late for that.
This is not a dream. The freefall is mother’s little slip
When she could no longer hold you still, somnolence
Finally taking over, and your cri d’couer, a scream,
For help, for caress, for all the love gone from an empty room.
The cradle falls, she can’t pick it up. Exhausted and utterly
Spent, she mutters in her sleep: Spare the rod, spoil the child.


5.

“An earthquake is expected on the fault lines between Israel
And Palestine”, the breaking news announces another temblor.
Nazareth shrines will be closed to pilgrims. And Jerusalem?
Closed. Gaza? Construction abandoned. Problems solved.
Like the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo drove the Ugly American
From the Philippine’s Clark Air Base where the legions
Of armed rebels, limp politicos, and clap-infected whores
Could not.


6.

Tomorrow, then, the Ring of Fire.



--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, April 26, 2010

HOLOCAUST IN MY MIND (A REVISION) AND THE WRITER'S NOTEBOOK

CRUISE FARES 3: HOLOCAUST IN MY MIND (A QUICK REVISION AND AFTERTHOUGHT)

Yobo of Sarnia

“In ascending steep climbs, the Himalayan Sherpas hold each other on the shoulder in a single file; you know, it somehow energizes them.” – Yobo, while climbing the Georgetown Fort in Grenada


“Sich falsche Hoffnungen machen,”
he muttered absently,
looking for an excuse to be on top
of a hill housing a dungeon.

Remnants of a lookout point,
the Fort stands now for an illusion:
safe from the marauders,
safe from the ogres of conquest,
here remains a craven rock
of futile defence from the claws
of Empires that came to save settlers
from voodoo and disease
in the name of God and country,
hope for the hoffnungsvoll,
a new world where the old
is a detritus of violence and greed.

“I am a castaway child
of the Holocaust, and I remember:
no dungeons or chambers
shall cut us down wherever we go;
our best revenge is to thrive
at any time in any clime in any place
where we find ourselves
derided, denied, and defeated;
it is only the hoffnunglos
who must inherit the wind;
my people will always build
the lighthouse on the knoll;
like the Sherpas on the Everest,
we hold each other‘s back
ascending, we lend each other
strength until the very end.”

Muttering, Yobo of Sarnia, man of means,
absently looked down the cliff and claimed:
“Ich auch eigen der Welt unter.
No one will take it away from me. Ever.
Pardon my Deutsch, Monsieur,
but habits die hard and tongues get twisted."

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

(Rewritten from its first version Cruise Fares 3: Holocaust in my Mind, the version above cuts the lines shorter to objectify the rhythm of the ascent on Fort George which remains on a cliff overlooking the capital city of Grenada in the Caribbean. It should suggest the breathing of the climbers as they strain to reach the top of the hill. Is this a better version?)

From Writer’s Notebook:

Yobo, a thriving businessman from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, and his spouse saw me struggling to climb Fort George, cursing with every step managed by my arthritic feet. “Why am I doing this?” I asked nobody in particular (not the least my wife who valiantly lumbered up the height
despite the same ailment the ageing is heir to. But she is a braver soul; the value-calculating tourist in her suggested the trek.)

“Are you all right?” His spouse asked with what I gauged as a genuine concern for a foul-mouthed stranger who might (at the moment) just be gearing to throw himself off the cliff to stave the agony of climbing a rock with an obviously neglected monument atop it.

“Pardon my French, but I am afraid I can’t go on,” I sheepishly apologized for my scatological diatribes.

Positioning herself behind me, she held my shoulder, and her Yobo hastened to explain (to my relief) that this is the secret behind the Sherpas being able to scale Everest with a lot of energy to spare.

I was profuse in thanking her compassion. Yobo chuckled. I got wheedled to move on, albeit feeling like a wimp.

At the top of the hill, we saw a dungeon-like bastion. At this point, Yobo introduced himself as coming from Sarnia, in Ontario, Canada, and I wheezingly replied we were likewise from Canada, in Mississauga. Toronto is a suburb, I said, and when they laughed I knew they were good people (not going to mug me).

The ensuing banter between Yobo and I was felicitous. It was the first decently intelligent conversation I engaged in (and sadly realized later, the last) during this Caribbean cruise where eating, sleeping, shopping, and bansheeing in the white-sand beaches were main events.

“Reminds me of the Holocaust,” Yobo said, pointing at the dungeon. “My grandfather sought refuge in Netherlands. I was 15 when we got to Canada. Not a word of English in my vocabulary.”

“We have our Intramuros in the Philippines where I was born. I taught at the University for a while, before getting drafted to work for the Information arm of the Marcos government,” I segued. “I left when the martial law government failed to create a better country.”

“Ah, dictatorships. How would its governors ever explain these abominations?” He said.

I was impressed by his vocabulary. Abominations is no longer used in the Twitter world.

“When Eichmann explained his monstrosities at the Nuremberg Trials, he said he did them for his country at the behest of the Fuhrer’s leadership.” I knew he was not going to be afraid to talk about the Holocaust.

“They have got to be accountable to someone,” he continued what was shaping up as a monologue. “If not to the people, at least to God. But they were not accountable to anyone.”

“They swelled before they could excel. The cliché about absolute power corrupting absolutely is true. Remember those? The first one from John Kennedy when he spelled out his criterion for government service. The second is a contemporary bromide that we all have to guard against. Even in democratic countries like Canada.”

My kind of English, I revelled at my cruise-find! A literate businessman.

I saw the chance to put in a good cent’s worth of thought, but my wife called us for a photo-op as bon fide touristic voyeurs.

I did not bother to ask Yobo if he said something in German. But I thought then that he has come a long way from the Holocaust, and that I admired his candour, and his grit to be thriving in spite of the indelible scars and despair of Holocaust victims.

I will find the Holocaust cogent not for its piled skeletons in death trains and gas chambers, but for the image of Yobo etched against the blue sky of Grenada, flowing snowy hair and gently grit jowls, muttering: “Bloodied but unbowed. Invictus, wasn’t it?” He punctuated.

Child of the Americas now, I thought, but he is an invincible Jew forever. Holocaust be damned.

Back at the liner, I wrote in my notebook: Ligne donnee: "Yobo, from Sarnia. Man of Faith. Man of Means. Holocaust in my Mind."

Mississauga, April 22, 2010

CRUISE FARES 3: HOLOCAUST IN MY MIND

CRUISE FARES 3: HOLOCAUST IN MY MIND

Yobo of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

“In ascending steep climbs, the Himalayan Sherpas hold each other on the shoulder in a single file; you know, it somehow energizes them.” – Yobo while climbing the Georgetown Fort in Grenada


“Sich falsche Hoffnungen machen,” he muttered absently,
looking for an excuse to be on top of a hill housing a dungeon.

Remnants of a lookout point, the Fort stands now for an illusion:
safe from the marauders, safe from the ogres of conquest,
here remains a craven rock of futile defence from the claws
of Empires that came to save settlers from voodoo and disease
in the name of God and country, hope for the hoffnungsvoll,
a new world where the old is a detritus of violence and greed.

“I am a castaway child of the Holocaust, and I remember:
no dungeons or chambers shall cut us down wherever we go,
our best revenge is to thrive at any time in any clime in any place
where we find ourselves derided, denied, and defeated;
it is only the hoffnunglos, who must inherit the wind,
my people will always build the lighthouse on the knoll.
Like the sherpas on the Everest, we hold each other‘s back
ascending, we lend each other strength until the very end.”

Muttering, Yobo of Sarnia, man of means, absently
looked down the cliff and claimed: “Ich auch eigen der Welt unter.
No one will take it away from me. Ever. Pardon my Deutsch,
Monsieur, but habits die hard and tongues get twisted."

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

Mississauga, April 16, 2010

CRUISE FARES 2: EDO AND UMBERTO OF BRAZIL

Umberto and Edo de Brazil

--- It rained at the Grand Anse beach in Grenada.
Writer’s Notebook on the Cruise

Hurriedly, furtively putting on her top piece,
she looked triumphantly nubile coming out
of the make-do change nook of towels held
by her Umberto to hide her from sparse beach
traffic gaze --- gauche stares from a hawker
of fun would have been de rigueur in Rio
when they were young, but she must now
twist and turn to cover a sag-here a bag-there:

El triumfo de vejez! Nuestra juventud perdida !
Aiee, que lastima ! Aiee, hermosura perdida !

She would have wept, but the Viejo beside her,
is once again her swain, coaxing her: Venga!
is all she needed to rush into the lapping waves.
Venga! Queridisima mia! A lass again, halloing
again at the water’s bite: Come, Umberto! Come!

But the mountain cloud bringing the first rain
after a searing summer has overtaken her glee:
Lluvia! Lluvia! She cried, bewailing the sudden
leeward burst. Bolting out of the roiled sea,
no longer Venus-like, she scampered --- her
caballero in tow --- to the thatched shed,
pell-mell shelter from an abrupt summer rain.

Was it the surprise of a wayward downpour
stopped her from her frolic in the sea?
Or was it the intruding pall ruined her mark
of the sun, gone from the sky, gone from the sea?
Lluvia! Lluvia! She warned anyone who cared
to listen --- the beach frolic rolled unabated.

Under the windblown shelter, she asked him:
Por que? Dime, amor mio, por que hace llover
cuando estamos contento con poquito alegre?
Con poquito de luz del sol ? Con tiempo poquito?

He shrugged as he shook the water off his ears.
Put your clothes on, Edo. The rain won’t stop,
might have been what he wanted to say when
she asked: Why must it rain when all we need
Is a little sunshine? In such a short short while?


--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, Ontario, April 13, 2010


(During the first week of April, diluvial floods have wrecked communities in Rio, Brazil, where Umberto and Edo must have gone back to after the cruise. The killer floods and landslides were caused by torrential rains.

Edo’s Lluvia! Lluvia! warning is worth heeding.

In the Philippines, a recent situs for killer floods, (now ironically widespread drought throughout the archipelago) schoolchildren have been taught to chant the English ditty once again: “Rain rain, go away! Come again another day. Little children want to play.” You know, just in case Yahweh understands English only.

The rain becomes a bloody plot. --- ABC)

CRUISE FARES: THE VIEUX MADAME, 84

A CRUISE FARE: THE VIEUX MADAME, 84

She held on to the shorter side of her skirt,
a Creole form of rainbow radiance raw on rays,
and took the proffered hand with a shy smile.

Her descent is uneventful save for all the eyes
riveted on her, the sole fare from an island shore
where fishermen glean enmeshed smelt
on day-long-heaved nets hitched to catamarans
docking light with empty baskets from a sea
that is now without fish or even fishermen.

To banter from ferry passengers tendered
ashore from cruising ocean liners, she mutters:
En Français, s’il vous plait. Non parle Anglais.

The boatswain gently cautions her to mind
the gangplank shuffle: Regardez ca!
On parle de vous, Madame.
Amused, she responds : Pourquoi pas ?
En fin, a quatre-vingts, gens remarquez!

They saw her looking away into that vast sea,
a half-smile cancelling a frown on her face,
quite like wishing away an unwanted memory.

Parlez-moi de votre voyage, mon cher,
the proffered hand asks past the gangplank.
En Anglais, mon ami : Et ees a long journée,
she says, pointing her cane rapier-like
to some lost horizon. Une voyage solitaire.

She laughs weakly, whispering:
Alors, Monsieur, a la prochaine. Bon chance!
She pulls her wind-blown skirt down and giggles.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, April 10, 2010