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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 29, 2013

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
 

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