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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.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

BETWEEN HERE AND THERE


BETWEEN HERE AND THERE


How hard is it to understand what the heart really wants? The body’s feathered/ with nostalgic veins resembling lines. Listen hard, read between each line. // No, the butterfly exploring your palm with its proboscis isn’t necessarily/ a symbol for anything else. You cannot read too much between the lines. ---“Ghazal, Between the Lines” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 06-28-12



A poverty of language requires reading
between the lines: the eyes cannot see,
nor scents mean anything.  No taste
or touch could jump out of nothing.
A trick, if there is one, is that meaning
cannot mean beyond the compulsions
of a body made for this time only.

Does one learn to understand a heart’s
diction? What words leap out of silence?
Why does one need to listen to whispers
of absence? Why do sounds of sorrow
and madness register the same timbre
where indifference is the sounding board?


Is this why we would rather tolerate poets?
They read and write between the lines,
and could not care less about the simple,
palpable grip of certainty bereft of clarity.
What is clearness if the whole truth hides
behind the unknown here and a dark there?


If meaning could not be found in one place,
here, why do we think we really understand?
Between the lines, we may yet begin to know

that we need to go there to be truly here.


---Albert B. Casuga
06-30-12


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