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ALBERT B. CASUGA, a Philippine-born writer, lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write poetry, fiction, and criticism after his retirement from teaching and serving as an elected member of his region's school board. He was nominated to the Mississauga Arts Council Literary Awards in 2007. A graduate of the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas (now University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Literature and English, magna cum laude), he taught English and Literature (Criticism, Theory, and Creative Writing) at the Philippines' De La Salle University and San Beda College. He has authored books of poetry, short stories, literary theory and criticism. He has won awards for his works in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Philippines. His latest work, A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems was published February 2009 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. His fiction and poetry were published by online literary journals Asia Writes and Coastal Poems recently. He was a Fellow at the 1972 Silliman University Writers Workshop, Philippines. As a journalist, he worked with the United Press International and wrote an art column for the defunct Philippines Herald.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

THE IRREDUCIBLE


THE IRREDUCIBLE  



A downy woodpecker gleans breakfast from the dead cherry, chirping between taps. A mackerel sky. The smell of thawed earth.---Dave Bonta, The Moring Porch, 02-27-12



Axiom of axioms: life is a circle.
Not that anything's wrong with it. 

The cherry tree falls in a winter storm,
by thaw, wee wrigglers wriggle out 

of their crannies and bask culinary
charm to tap-tapping peckers busy 

now before all these victual hide
in foliage that live forever. Till fall. 

In the darkness of the porch man's
soul, he rues how extremely cruel 

it must seem to consume breast milk
whose absence lets her thyroid grow. 

It is the canon of the Master: Deny
yourself.  One exists, but for the other 

(who will soon want your coal, oil, tar,
for ducats, and soon all your water.) 

Quid pro quo? No. No quid, no quo.
Undo all that: Who wins a war gets all. 

The winner takes all. Under a mackerel
sky, some fire has burned a loser hoarder. 

In a thawed earth, the winter takes it all.
Axiom: someone's got to die for us all. 



--- Albert B. Casuga
03-01-12


1 comment:

Hannah Stephenson said...

What a wonderful winning out of sounds (the quid pro quo-no line is a favorite, and "winter" and "winner"). All about consumption, eh?