DOWN THE SLOPE (A Poem triggered by a ligne donne): A Series

DOWN THE SLOPE

(For Francisco F. Casuga+)

Yet all the precedent is on my side:/I know that winter death has never tried/The earth but it has failed;.../It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak. --- Robert Frost, The Onset


I would run down the slope and catch myself
a rolling ball of snow before it falls into the ravine,
but walking through the silently falling snow
at the trail is a choice for these creaking knees---
no more gossoon games defying gravity for me
or flying off the hillside edge into fluff below
among the stiffened bramble and wild apple tree.

There’s warmth in the silence of falling snow:
I feel his gentle hands on my nape, I hear him,
I ask him if he would drink a pint with me
if I had reached beer-guzzling age before
he’d make his final trek, before he’d leave,
but I hear his whistling for the wind instead
and tug at his wayward kite now puncturing
some sombre summer sky in San Fernando.

O, how I’d run down the barren slopes to catch
his fallen kite among the burnt logs of the kaingin*
but these are flakes I find myself catching
and whipped out twigs that break the silence
of falling snow. O my father.

__________
*Clearings made by burning forests


--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-28-11




The Given Line triggering the poem (ligne donne)

The silence of falling snow. When my furnace kicks on, the three deer digging under the wild apple tree startle and run down the slope. ---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-28-11 (http://www.morningporch.com/)

Francisco Flores Casuga+ would have been
90 last January 9, 2011.

WRATH DESCENDING (A poem triggered by a ligne donne): A Series

WRATH DESCENDING*


It is the retrieval of the limp bodies now piled
six-deep from the quarry’s downhill rampage
that assails even the prayerful dirges sounding
more like a pounding charivari, clangour of
spades against rock clashing with diggers’ calls

for gargling gasps of the dying and shushing
threats to yelping dogs and barking policemen
to plead for silence, a doleful quietude of hope
for hands to cut through the rubble, for faces
really, spitting clay and fighting through debris,

but the strangeness of a startling quarry truck
reverse beeper gone bad does the quelling work
instead like stifling a waking-up snore through
the trill of an alarm clock that’s advertised as
able to rouse even the dead; then stone silence

breaks through but instantly ruptured by the trill
of sparrows lining the pell-mell polewires;
the thud of the quarry truck’s spade startles
a duelling pair that tumbles through torn thicket,
the trilling sounds continue while a weary sun

sets signalling the perching hour of sparrows
absently chirping a cacophony of evening songs
as they have done before and yet to do
though hillsides crumble, or heavens weep,
or quarry truck reverse beepers beep crazily, too.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-26-11



The Given Line triggering the poems (ligne donne)

A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-26-11

(http://www.morningporch.com/)

* Originally under the Morning Porch title: Another Sentence (After Luisa's)

ON THE FREEWAY (A poem triggered by a ligne donne): Series

ON THE FREEWAY



It’s time we found the highway,
we seem to be driving in circles,
and the breaking circles are obscured
by the constantly hugging low clouds
that wrap around legs like children
pleading: Don’t go away, don’t go!

The highway sounds close, the hush
has broken into the steady hum
of the scrambling city---we will be
there before sundown, and get on
with put-off plans to ride down
those highways: We cannot go back.

The freeway sounds close,
the shimmering air smells of carbon
burning away the creeping clouds
that have waylaid us on our rush
to get out and not come back
to old houses and blackened ponds
too distant to remember. It is late.


---ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-25-11



The Given Line (ligne donne triggering the poem)

Low clouds, and the highway—almost inaudible for weeks—sounds close. The air shimmers. I stick an arm out, and white motes dot my sleeve.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-25-11 (http://www.morningporch.com/)

A WINTER QUESTION (A Poem Triggered by a Given Line [ligne donne]): A Series

A WINTER QUESTION


Must the burdock’s flower grow this prickly
To preen above its dock leaves that shelter
Leeches, lady bugs, and meandering lizards?

Some time soon, at season’s turn, we might
Find that question useful. Not now. Not when
Even the sharp sparkles of a winter sun can't
Lend it poise: it has a thin but graceful shadow
Shorn of its leaves that could have been
A junco’s perch, a bug’s slalom zigzag course,
A gecko’s undulant porch, a look-out point
For the titmouse gone gaga over downy snow.

Some time soon, the burdock’s prickly flower
Will, with its spring nectar, find its butterfly.
Will anyone dare call it ugly and squat then?


---ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-24-11


The Given Line Triggering the Poem:

The ugly squat burdock has a thin and graceful shadow. It inches over the snow without getting snagged by the sharp sparkles of sun.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-24-11 (http://www.morningporch.com/)

FIREPLACE HAIKUS (Poems triggered by a given line---ligne donne): Series

FIREPLACE HAIKUS

Now I may wither into the truth.

—W. B. Yeats

1.
The lass on my lap
Said: I won’t play with snow
Today, abuelo.

2.
Even snowmen
Will freeze, will crack in two.
Can’t play tomorrow.

3.
On the frozen pond,
Dead frogs and birds on icy
Snow are broken, too.

4.
O, look! The mouse jumped
Into his hole in the wall
To keep his tail warm.

5.
Inside, a fireplace
Crackles, a heated teapot
Is on the table.

6.
A soggy paper
Of old and current events
Says: Cold kills homeless.

7.
Use paper for fire,
Abuelo, the lass offered.
Nodding approval

8.
I muttered wryly:
The snow is my newspaper,
Your eyes my fireplace.


— ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, ON 1-23-11

The Given Line (ligne donne) from Morning Porch

In the bitter night, a white-footed mouse bounded unerringly from the corner of the wall to a hole 20 feet away. The snow is my newspaper.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-23-11 (http://www.morningporch.com/)

In the same blog, Philippine-born Norfolk poet Luisa Igloria explains the composition process she uses in writing her poems in response to the Morning Porch meditations. Like this writer, she subscribes to the process of letting the lines "trigger" a poetic experience that she pursues through its complexities. Also found in Bonta's Via Negativa (http://www.vianegativa.us/).

Likewise, through this series, I expect to write  about how a "poem happens" when it springs from the given line (ligne donne) or lines that gets the poem written (i.e., style, technique, theory, evaluation).

THE PILOT LIGHT (A Poem Triggered by a Ligne Donne): Series

THE PILOT LIGHT



Trains do not run at Poro Point, China Sea’s north sentinel,
But I always recall midnight trainrides going back home:

They would crane their necks out for a distant light, however
Late it took for this rickety, dank, dingy, and dark charger
To arrive at its last station in San Fernando. He is home.
Único hijo, niño bonito, Salvador del nombre muerto.

When I saw her last, she asked: Did you take that long ride
On the midnight train? You should have waited for us
To meet you at the station. You should have called.
Where is your father? Did anyone meet you there at all?

The train does not come here anymore was a kind answer
I thought I would have said, but I kept as quiet as his sepia
Portrait on the wall. I tore away to a space of intense cold
And stillness, so deep the trains cannot be heard.

That was the lad of lost years grown beyond these tears,
The kisses on her hands were those of a shrivelled man
Gone back to retrieve promises that remain unkept:
I will be back on all those midnight trains. I will be back.

Here, on my hammock hour, on a cold cabin porch,
I catch a cardinal flicker like a pilot light under the bridal
Wreath bush and espy the blurred distant light of a cargo
Train pushing through the looming blizzard.


— ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-22-11

The Given Line (ligne donne) triggering the poem:

Intense cold, and a stillness so deep the trains can barely be heard. A cardinal flickers like a pilot light under the bridal wreath bush.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-22-11(http://www.morningporch.com/)

DRINKING THE DARK WATER (A Poem Triggered by a Ligne Donee [Given Line])

DRINKING THE DARK WATER


If you braved the stygian stink of Ilog Pasig and sang songs
While harvesting floating tulips, debris, or stray crayfish
For some foregone repast before it turned into River Styx;
---IF: Earth Poems, Asia Writes Featured Poem, A. B. Casuga, June 2010


Five or six juncos at a time flutter down
to drink from the dark water of the yet
unfrozen stream covered by their lilac perches.

Elsewhere in the shantytowns of Haiti,
children jump into murky canals---
what’s left of them unburied by debris---
swim with the flotsam and carrion of dogs
and carcasses of swine felled by temblor.

Their raucous laughter and irreverent
hallooing mock UN relief workers mixing
purifiers, quinine, chlorine, into tanks filled
with dark water to supply the infirmary
nearest the canals with drinking vats
for the sick and dying, cleaning liquid
for strewn sputum, faeces, excreta galore,
and at end of day dark water for the
naked boys and prancing girls to swim in
with the floating carrion and lilies of the marsh.

The trill of snowbirds fluttering down
to drink from the dark water covered
by their lilac perches are dirges elsewhere
in the dark water canals of a wounded Earth.


--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-21-11

The Given Line (Ligne donne) that triggers the poem:

Juncos fill the lilac, nearest cover to an unfrozen section of stream. Five or six at a time they flutter down to drink from the dark water.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-21-11
(http://www.morningporch.com/)

A LULLABY AT SUNDOWN (Poem Triggered by a Ligne Donne)

A LULLABY AT SUNDOWN

At sundown, on my hammock hour, I hum a lullaby.
And I become the magus among the cattails chanting:

O give me a home bursting with laughter and song,
O give me a nook to hide and hold quicksilver dreams.

In their crannies, I shall wrap them with sunflowers;
In icy snow chambers, I shall save slivers of sunlight
To keep them warm. I shall be the rabbit popped out
Of the magus’ cone hat, I shall jump and disappear

Into their hideaway taking the darkness with me.
In their lairs and treehouses, I shall bring dry flint
And candlesticks and all things bright and crackling;
I shall be with my wee ones and darkness be damned.


--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-20-11

The Ligne Donne (Given Line)

Juncos hop on the icy snow between the cattails where a rabbit disappeared fifteen minutes earlier, taking the darkness with it.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-20-11 (http://www.morningporch.com/)

7. TODAY'S NEWS AFTER LAST NIGHT'S RAIN (A Poem Triggered by a Morning Porch Ligne Donne [Given Line])

#7. A poem triggered by a ligne donne (given line)

TODAY’S NEWS



Washlines strung on gnarled lean-to posts
Hide hovels with garments shrunk in the wash:
Dhaka’s label shirts for Hilfiger’s shelves
Are ready for the children’s harvest—after
Last night’s rain, dust and mites and muck
Should have been rinsed off to get them
Ready for the cackling cutters in slumyards
Who would bundle “made in China” shirts
While cracking whips on narrow backs
Or wraith-like limbs wherever lashes find them.

After last night’s rain, the snow fits each
Dip and hummock more tightly, as would mud
In gaping mouths of children buried in slides
Of Brazilian earth, or tapered coastlines
Washed into rampaging rivers reclaiming
Riparian rights over garbage landfills
In Sri Lanka, Benguet, Samar, Pakistan,
Australia’s Queensland, Chile, Copenhagen,
Manila, New York, name them, they are
In today’s AP, Reuters, CNN, Ankara disaster
News. Nostradamus, Nostradamus.

The creaking of doves’ wings after last
Night’s rain is hibernation sound heard
Round the world. At season’s turn, whirrs
Of flapping wings might yet bring an avian
Rainfall—of dead and dying birds plummeting
To earth not unlike smirking kamikaze pilots
Immolating themselves for the Rising Sun;
The cracking of wings after last night’s
Rain might yet be the mystery of the perishing
Sandpiper burrowing into tar pits or
Mallards choking on Gulf Oil cum BP cocktail, or
Kookaburras muzzled on the old gum tree.

Ah, rain and snow and creaking dove wings:
After last night’s rain, they are a bloody plot.


— ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-19-11

The Given Line:

After last night’s rain, the snow fits each dip and hummock more tightly, like a garment shrunk in the wash. The creaking of doves’ wings.---Morning Porch, Dave Bonta, 1-19-11

Commenting on the poem triggered by his Morning Porch post, Dave Bonta says: There’ve been mornings I felt like that. Those are, after all, mourning doves. (http://www.morningporch.com/)

6. A TALE OF A TRYST (A Poem Triggered by a Ligne Donne)

A TALE OF A TRYST


Espy on her moving foglike through snowpacked flowerbeds,
and quietly draw the blinds lest you startle the feral cat
before she turns and gets to the edge of the cabin porch blurred
into the landscape by fine snow---still with graceful gait,
still oblivious of frantic twitter from the quivering branches,
still the master of her needs.

Watch her walk sure-footed in her own footsteps through
benighted garden snow, clear prints in each old crater,
meandering steps on steps like old markers or old habits.

This is the way of the free, the wizened, and the wise:
track back to where the wild spirit finds the true wild heart
wandering where it once found warmth and caress when
none could be hunted.

Espy on her moving to the edge of the porch,
close enough to feel the fire, close enough
to want to jump on a lap and fearlessly, gently snuggle
where love burned bright and rages still. Then take her in.


--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, January 18, 2011

This poem was posted on Dave Bonta's Morning Porch 22 minutes after Luisa Igloria posted her "Photogram". True to form, Luisa is quick and unerring in her poetic composition. The exercises of writing poems from a given line (ligne donne) is giving me immense life and pleasure. To think that the poem I finished in my "afternoon porch" literally complements Luisa's (compliments, too)! (Inset: Norfolk ,Virginia poet Luisa Igloria)

Indeed, two "playing" poets get their thought molecules colliding in cyberspace. It is serendipitous!

The Bonta line:

Fine snow blurs the edges of the porch. The feral cat has walked in her own footsteps through the garden, a clear print in each old crater. ---Jan. 18, 2011 Morning Porch, Dave Bonta (http://www.morningporch.com/)