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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.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHICKENS



LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHICKENS

(En los tiempos peligrosos, para ti Gabo)*



The yard is dusty, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The chickens have scratched a path from one side to the other...---From “Charmed Life” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-09-12


As dusty as the mind of this viejo, hermana poeta?
The dust is there, siempre, so the learned chickens
could limn the ordinariness of their lives on soil
that has been fertilized by the manure of humans
who write in garbled language adorned by commas
and semi-colons as if their thoughts mattered here.
Some call it verbal diarrhea, I call it constipation.
A condition where the mind is no longer there.



—Albert B. Casuga
 07-09-12



*The brother of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Laureate in Literature, has revealed to media that the author has of late been ill with dementia, a mental illness which manifests itself as “a loss of intellectual power.”

This was published in Via Negativa as a response to Norfolk poet Luisa A. Igloria who originally wrote a poem “Charmed Life” in response to a prompt posted by Pennsylvania poet Dave Bonta’s  The Morning Porch.



AN IDEOGRAPHIC VERSION OF
“LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHICKENS”


(Lo siento mucho, Gabo.)


As dusty as the mind of this viejo, hermana poeta?-
The dust is there, siempre, ----------------------------
so the learned chickens---------------------------------
could limn the ordinariness ---------------------------
of their lives on soil-------------------------------------
that has been fertilized ---------------------------------
by the manure of humans------------------------------
who write in garbled language ------------------------
adorned by commas and semi-colons----------------
as if their thoughts mattered here.--------------------
Some call it verbal diarrhea, ---------------------------
I call it constipation,-------------------------------------
a condition where ---------------------------------------
the mind is -----------------------------------------------
no longer -------------------------------------------------
there.*-----------------------------------------------------



*If intellectual strength is represented by a square (a full and alert mind), this plays on an deographic/ concrete presentation of Gabriel Marquez’s brain being eaten up by loss of intellectual power. Que lastima!


---Albert B. Casuga
07-10-12



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