COMING HOME: POEMS IN THREE VOICES

 

 

COMING HOME: POEMS IN THREE VOICES

1.  Her Questions

How far have you gone from all that you were,
little chipped stone from a hidden tributary,
little pebble that has yet to reach the bottom
of the well to hear its thunk and come to rest?

How far, indeed, that you must finally beg
to be taken home? Where, what place, what
troubled spaces have you been all these years?
Bitter years, you say almost in descant candor.

Take you home? But where do you belong?
If I knew, if I could follow that map long
faded in your doleful heart that has dogged
every fickle chord from every pied piper—

If I could find every pied-a-terre you’ve been
that I might collect the shattered life pieces
left of your gypsy heart so I could remould
them to our heart’s desire, I would. I will.

Take you home. Prop you up, start you up
once again from whence you came, where
your heart is not merely a sieve for sorrow
or pain, but where it is a fortress of care.

2.  Looking Back

Trek back to the church belfry and be the deft
hands of the carillonneur you wished you were
when you were young, malleable, and oh, so free
to dream, to laugh, to thumb your little nose

at the carousing lads vaulting over rooftops
to call your name, to sing your name like
perching sparrows lined on some errant wires
at sunset warbling: sweet-sweet, sweet-sweet!

Take me back. Take me back. And we will retrace
those letters carved on some saplings grown tall
beyond our reach, and sing with carillon clangor
those old evening songs, brave songs, love songs.

We will outdo the bell choir master on the belfry,
ring them all, sing them all, hum them all until
sundown overtakes us and we hold our tremulous
voices like stuttered promises of coming home.

3.  His Condition

I am back, but I have nothing new to say,
nor anything that I can offer save myself.
Unchanged, undefined, unshackled, free.

There is no other way you would have me.
Would you rather I had lost my insouciance?
Would you have me speak only one language,

that of fear, and would not risk this loss again?
Sing only your song? Part my hair another way?
At the edge of the woods, I have mastered wiles.

You’d think I had changed and now just a shadow
of a broken man come home to lick old wounds
that were left unsalved, cankered when I lost you.

I am the same, and this sameness will make you
want to look again even if the thousand faces
that you behold are those from a shattered mirror.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

 

THE SHOW BEGINS AT CURTAIN FALL

 

 

THE SHOW

Curtain falls. The show begins.
The end is really its start.
Like small stories before this,

a protagonist struts on the stage,
his antagonist leaps unto a wing,
they quickly mumble their lines,
and like crossed swords swoon
into muffled profanities sworn
to befall the other at cockcrow.

Nothing thickens the plot, no
act curdles to beg for untangling,
there is no climactic resolution.
The stage is darkened and bare.
No one stirs for a curtain call,
not even a stagehand to watch
a quick and easy curtain fall.
Like life imitating a theatre act,
there is no audience for this end.

--- Albert B. Casuga

 

LOST PASSIONS: THREE POEMS

LOST PASSIONS: THREE POEMS

I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?—T.S. Eliot, Gerontion

1. Dry Timber

What could I tell you after all that was said?
Nothing could be taken back, nothing offered.
The passion I thought I had is an old saw---
It would not, could not cut through the years
That have turned into whorled cores in a tree
Cut down in the harvest of logs, a clearing
That will not grow again. Will not be here again.
Dry timber in a forest fire.

2. The Sunflower

As faith would have it, she is loyal to the scorcher.
She moves her face for her hoard of warm caress,
Until he singes all that is tinder dry in the woods
Where she finds herself the first to perish by fire.

3. Frozen Acts

He will find what he has not spent of his life
like a distant thunder. It has lost its rumble
before crawling across dark clouds with a hint
of a lightning. No jolt here, no surprises. Nil.

Quite like a deus ex machina in a pulp piece
that lends itself into a silent film where she
screams for her knight in shining armour
to save her from a berserk Kingkong, but all
it ends with is that silent scream, a Munch
finis that starts all illusions to remake, if he
could beg for another run around the floor,
and redeem a wasted lifetime of frozen acts.

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

PATINTERO: REMEMBERING INDAY+

PATINTERO

(Remembering Inday+ on her Birthday, June 26, 2013)*



How do I best remember you, hermanita?

That father would call you princesita mia
after a swig of Domecq and sarsaparilla?

You were not one to get excited by these,

nor would you bat an eyelash; you’d jump
off his lap and call out to me: “ ‘manong!

That was always my cue for another game

of patintero under the lone lamp on our
camino; your sad eyes lit up, you’d smile.

The smile you bravely left me when you

hugged me from your sick bed, was your
own smile, nobody else’s. I will not forget.

---Albert B. Casuga

*Brenda Teodora B. Casuga-Maglaya, is a younger sister, who was also my best childhood friend.

A LAUGHTER OF LEAVES

 

 

A LAUGHTER OF LEAVES

 

Toddling among the leaves,

she lets out a shriek only

diving seagulls can make

as they taunt the raucous

fishermen to let some catch

off their bursting nets, share

the joie d’vivre only drunken

sailors home from the seas

are full of. Aieeeeeeeekkkk!

 

The darkening sky lets out

a funnel of fall wind, roils

the crackling leaves raked

by these carousing innocents,

and she stumbles on a heap,

swims through the mound

of sienna and fallen foliage,

but her laughter makes him

tremble now, her pensive

grandpere:

 

Mon dieu, let her laugh, let

the pall of transience pass,

that she may be defiant

with full laughter. Forever.

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

GROW LIKE THE CREEK: THREE POEMS FOR LOUIS

GROW LIKE THE CREEK:

THREE POEMS FOR LOUIS

 

(For Louis Martin Casuga-Lalonde at Six)

 

1. Wiping Him Dry

 

Grow like the creek, as did this wisp of a boy

rising from the water, hallooing:

Look, abuelo, I can dive, I can swim!

He wiggled his salva vida floating to the edge,

his face toward the bright blue sky: I am good!

 

As all grandfathers would, I said: You are!

Oh, you are, my boy. And while I wipe you dry

after this dousing frolic, I run my hands over

your body, cleaning it of any tinge of dry clay,

loathe to think that if I were shaping you

from the mud East of Eden, I’d want you pure,

unalloyed, a cherubic imp of a teaser, a laughter

tickled out of a dream, a pure delight, and clean.

 

2. Like the River

 

Under his breath, he also lisped a wistful
plea to the walls around him or whoever
could hear an old man’s prayer:

Please, let him build them strong, and not
destroy; and for my nieto jovencito, to never
forget that there are grander castles in the air.
Please, let him grow like the creek,
when freed of silt will turn to clearest blue.
O, let him flow like the river and find his sea.

 

3. Yet Another Robot at Six

 

He would build them with empty soda cans,

recycled wire, parts unknown until they move.

Look, abuelo, a robot! Whence come this love

for all things foreign to this dotard askance

about why little lads like him would prattle

about apps and some such instead of apples?

 

He blew the candles on his pumpkin cake,

I bet he wished for yet another robot kit

and another program of games on his Ipad,

head bowed before yet another gizmo lit

on a screen, a praying stance for this lad

who would grow up, I bet, with his little head

a tad forward and leading him like earlier

kin in some stone age, a neo-Neanderthal,

peering at an Iphone, an Ipad. Nowhere else.

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

June 20, 2013. Mississauga

TREEHOUSE POEMS: PLANNING FOR A TREEHOUSE and MARIE IN THE TREEHOUSE

PLANNING FOR A TREEHOUSE

(Voices from Three Generations)

(For my Grandchildren)

1.

Come summer, we will build
another treehouse on an oak
overlooking the creek, there
is more of you now to gather
remnants we can put together.

Nothing bigger, but higher,

maybe closer to the clouds,
nearer to the stars, away from
the giggling girls next door.
We will see less of the world.

2.

Or more of it below: yelping
dogs lining up for the lift-leg
tree astride our river bank,
are easy slingshot targets off
stouter, steadier branches.

O, and there is soldier-boy

doing it with the wife round
the clock since he came back
wounded from Iraq, Libya,
and all on the eastern crack.

3.

Shush, buddyboy, that’s not
what treehouses are for. What
are they for, gramps? To espy
on sparrows, robins, jays, owls
talk to each other on sundowns.

 

So, if we build it a bit higher,
we can also build a treehouse
for God, can we not, gramps?
Why ever for, laddie? He is
everywhere. But nowhere near?

4.

Cool. A treehouse for God on
the river bend. Then, maybe,
just maybe, we can visit him
anytime, gramps, ask for help
for starving kids in Somalia.

Hook him up on a telephone

line, strings and cans and all,
and maybe Dad can provide
Him with a Bell Internet link,
alert Him on the Facebook!

5.

So he can stop all killings and all,
and punish priests who molest
altar boys and girls, and...Whoa!
Whoa, boys, we are building a
treehouse, not His jailhouse.

Could we build one for God,
anyway, gramps? We got boards
and plywood and shingles and
nails, and...borrow mom’s cross,
to protect Him in His treehouse.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

MARIE IN THE TREEHOUSE

It was the prayer he chuckled about,

that he make it intact to the top
rung of the rickety ladder: writhe,
ride on the wind, old man, be stout
heart, bring her up to His little shop.

She let out a shriek of eager delight.

Abuelo with the creaking kneebone,
gramps of the war room treehouse,
catcher on base, top worrier on site,
cradled her, still as a graveyard stone.

A lass let loose in a toyland’s house,

she skipped and twirled and looked
around, her eyes darting from wall
to wrapping wall, wondering perhaps
what was grand about a dingy nook

emptied of a dollhouse.  Why crawl

through an elfin door, or bother at all?

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

DISCOMFITURE

 

 

DISCOMFITURE

 

Stay still, we ask/ our things, while we repurpose/ them. What we mean is stay, / still, we need a little longer.—From “Repurposed” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 11-22-11

 

Memories are needs reshaped as still points,

if they could just be pinned down to stay

whole before falling like shattered mirrors

that recompose as harlequins of fluid faces

struggling to remould beyond the shadows

and the strange masks that fears and dread

now wear as they strut about as tall desires

we pray would remain longer than a mirage

of remembrances perishing like the carrion

of dreams and endless longings to be here.

 

There are no signs nor arrows on this path

that could retrace those gentle and happy

days when we owned the place where we

could not get lost even if we heroically tried.

We mean to rename these streets and mark

them indelibly so we could come home again.

But those still points are never there nor still

when we need them steadier than chameleons

that we are born with, where our zero point

is neither water, nor dirt, nor fire, nor air.

 

--Albert B. Casuga

 

 

 

 

 

SENTRY

 

 

 

SENTRY

The stool
stood sentry
to a darkened room

where she said she
would wait
if it took forever,
and it did.

The stool will outlast
the stonewalls,
rotting doors,
loosened bricks, dust,
and bramble.
It will be there.

Waiting.

---Albert B. Casuga

TO BUILD HOMES OUT OF BOX HOUSES

 

 

TO BUILD HOMES OUT OF BOX HOUSES

(For Marie Clementine)

Something about boxes as make-believe houses

Define their stories of how they must grow away
To stay close, anchored like uncut umbilicus.

Always look homeward, lass, and you will stay

To listen to this old heart’s rhythm in tall tales
Of shadows dancing on the walls, a shadow play

As real as your play-sets, teacups, saucers, kettles

And cutlery, all faces of a vibrant dreamworld game
Where abuelo will always be the catcher of shells

And you the full-to-the-brim pitcher of warm joy

In a pretend abode as inchoate as these cardboard
Walls emptied of things grown-ups like for a toy

To build homes with, to brighten shelters with,

And think paper pillars are stronger than reed.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

06/14/13, Mississauga

 

ATOP A HILL OVERLOOKING THE SEA: TWO POEMS FOR MOTHER

ATOP A HILL OVERLOOKING THE SEA: TWO POEMS FOR MOTHER

 

1. AN UNCERTAIN QUIET

(For Mother*)

But there is silence now at the phoebe’s nest–-/ the fledglings have flown–-Icarus-like must test/ their wings against the sinews of a summer wind. / Is this uncertain quiet also an augury of mourning? ---From “Gone: A Weaning Song”, A. B. Casuga, 06-10-12

Is this uncertain quiet also an augury of mourning?
It is a cool, bright, and clear but silent morning,

what should move have not, even the gentle breeze
ruffling foliage rampant now on the crowns of trees

seemed to have gone still like the stale pool of mud
that must have caked in the warm night and seized

around the trunk clinging, child-like, on Mother’s
knee wailing: Don’t go! Don’t leave me! Please stay?

But she could not; she has waited for this clear day
to take a trip she must have wished for among others,

all dreams gone stale then, but she must go and meet
Father somehow where he has waited along a street

Where they were to see each other again on a cool day,
Eager to wrap each other in arms that pleaded: Stay!


---Albert B. Casuga


*Nenita Buenaventura Casuga, b. January 11, 1923 , d. June 11, 2012)+ R.I.P.

 

 

2. GRIEF: THE OTHER FORM

(Remembering Mother)


"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form." ~ Rumi


Lo siento, mucho. I am sorry. Sympathies,
thoughts, and prayers.They are staple;
when the loss stings, these do salve pain.

But is sorrow eased somehow by these
when in the gloom, they are only able
to shape and reshape, as only niceties can,

into dread that they will not be there again
when mornings jolt the stricken and unable
into a stream of emptiness, a hollow niche

where totems people the blank memories
that must fill in the gaps like this candle
melts into a candelabra to hide what it can

about the abyss of oblivion, a gaping solace,
when the dead are interred in this dark place?


---ALBERT B. CASUGA