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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.

Friday, April 27, 2012

THE STAND-OFF



THE STAND-OFF


Watched by a chipmunk at the end of the stone wall, I hold a mouthful of coffee in my cheeks, do my best to look as if I know how to live.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-26-12


 What does he know about being alive
 that the chipmunk would not know?
 Would laughing at his misadventure
 be one of his given talents? When he
 mimics the nutcracker with puffed-up
 cheeks worked out by a mouthful
 of caffeinated brew, might the rodent
 hysterically guffaw (in its own style),
 when he chokes on the mis-swallowed
 coffee, coughs his lungs out, spins
 out-of-body in a near-death episode?
 Betting odds: Who gets to laugh last?




–Albert B. Casuga
 05-26-12




Here’s Poem #27 in my poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month.

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