UNCERTAIN WEATHER

 

UNCERTAIN WEATHER

“We have known them all already,
known them all”. Thus, we measure lives,
abandoned hopes, laments, even sighs.

We have heard them all already,
the prayers that remain unanswered
behind bolted doors, darkened rooms.

This anguish over being here and not
here is all too familiar, but like innocent
children, we still look toward times

when we eagerly open holiday boxes
and find surprises no longer there,
but manage to smile anyway, bottle up

a “No thank you,” and move on to other
boxes, only to find feigned familiar
joy that those are still the wanted toys.

Like uncertain weather marked in the sky,
we move on, unchartered, with the flux,
like all things plotted begin then end.

 

—Albert B. Casuga

 

SOLITUDE: LEFTOVERS ON HER TABLE

LEFTOVERS ON HER TABLE

 

I walk alone in its corridors,

like I am one of the planks,

clean, clear, but cold floors

stretched endlessly, blanks,

empty but will always be full

of the sounds of loneliness:

spoons and forks fall, their

clangour strangely cutting

through the night when

the dinner table is cleared

quietly away, the children

could not make it. Eating

leftovers just isn't the same

anymore, the leche flan still

golden, caramel and cream

browned on the edges will

harden overnight in a freezer

dear to them as “old geezer.”

Morning tea on a bare porch

is absently left to cool off

in a squat cup left untouched

on a receiving table now left

trembling from traffic fare

on the rousing old highway.

Maybe they will call today,

maybe they will still see me

after turkey day. Christmas!

O, will they be here at last?

The cup tinkles, I look away,

a twig has fallen into my cold tea.

---Albert B. Casuga

 

Poems on Loss Series: Separations, deaths, loss of precious allegiances, defeats---they excite deeply-rooted emotions that stimulate the creative process---let's define them in poetic contexts and hope to find what riveting realities abide in them. Why do they linger? What for? I vaguely recall the Bard's line: "when in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state...". Let's go into these.

SOMETHING ABOUT PICKING UP RAGDOLLS

Poems of Loss Series #3: There are other love poems that speak of pain and longing, of regret and fear, of failure to sustain the happiness that one must give to loved ones, like children who are left to cry themselves to sleep, forever hoping their absentee parents would soon come home with the day's surprises and goodies to reward good little boys and girls. Night falls. Father has not come home. Mother has gone elsewhere in pursuit of her own dreams.

 Drawing by A. B. Casuga, 1990 

 

SOMETHING ABOUT PICKING UP RAGDOLLS

“Hijo, como estas haciendo con mis nietas y nieto mientras su mujer desgraciada esta viviendo una vida loca? Aiee, santisima, hijo. Ven aqui. Regresas a San Fernando, para puedo ayudarte con sus ninas y unico hijo.---Old Letter Found in a Garbage Recycling Box

Something about picking up ragdolls and cans
graffitied on one’s conscience in silent rooms
built to peek slowly into coincides with the loss
of verb in one’s speech: no amity here between
this ministry and that menagerie.

Evening brings a pack of censure for the father
who, leaving, pledged the carnage of the baker’s
best and Andersen’s hoary hairy fairy tales,
arriving,  plods through debris of waiting --
(arm-less d-o-l-l-s, paperrrrripped dolls,
paper ships, paper planes, paper hats, paper…),
forgetting, now mournfully remembers:
“Candy stores are closed along the way home.”

Silent rooms are built to peek slowly into
because fathers have given up looking
into daughters’ eyes form tears, arguing
the relevance of waiting when all the piper has
is a paper bag of music and a pack of metaphors.
(“You know, only children recall the Deluge?”)
The evening sees the piper leading the (mass)
mice and piper (pauper) drowning.

Fathers plod through debris of waiting
and have learned in turn to pray.*

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

*Revised version of the poem of the same title posted in my literary blog April, 2009.

DO NOT DISTURB

 

 

 

DO NOT DISTURB

You are noisy/ even when you are silent, / the world is dripping with/ Do Not Disturb signs in/ languages we don’t even/ recognize as languages. --- From “On Eggshells” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 01-03-12 

It is easy enough to hear silence

at the edge of the woods. It is loud.

Your pounding heart is not there

beating sense into your dulled mind.

They just jump out like shadows

on walls, turn their backs, ignore us.

On its own, one whines with longings

struggling to spill out, uncorked,

from unguarded gaols of feelings

that have lain fallow, rotten carrion

of desire tardily unbound, love gone

still, a truant finally nailed dead

on broken beds creaking under cold

sheets that will never find heat again.

The other, a slug of a mind, stays mute,

until it is egged on to scream out a pain

in its pure form: a memory of loss,

a raw betrayal of troth. Cut, cut clean.

Out of the woods, on his way home,

it was easy to read on the locked cottage

door an absent sign: Do not disturb.

Silence has its sharp language. It is clear.

 

--- Albert B. Casuga

A MUD DANCE DIALOGUE

Love Poem Series #10. This is it. The last of the love poems. Is love most nearly itself when it ceases to matter? T. S. Eliot asked that in one of his poems. I’d say yes, and rush to hide.

 

A MUD DANCE DIALOGUE

 

How about we try for some joy?—From “In a Hotel Lobby, Near Midnight”, Luisa A. Igloria

 

Mud as fire extinguisher? Bloody overkill, I say.
Douse it with a spit of brandy and gin chaser,
and off to a cabin at the edge of the woods! Huh.

“How about we try some joy”? A blowhard’s line.
How about a walk in the woods, mud and all,
and answer old questions left unanswered:

Is love most nearly itself when it ceases to matter?
What is need that it remains unsatiated, unmet,
when lovers seek ardour to brim beyond fulfillment?

Ah, let’s slosh away in the mud where mud is,
and we might yet find a balm for this burning ember
we carry around like raw marks singed in our palms.

What joy is there where union is not communion?
What need is there for glowing embers flaming out
of buckets? I would rather we danced in this muck

of mud and find our freed fears become the dance,
our only dance, before the stroke of midnight,
before the convulsions of laughter turn to pain.

—Albert B. Casuga

 

GROWING AWAY

GROWING AWAY

It is the room we dread to open

when we go back home because

we have to. You can bunk in here,

nothing has changed, you sleep

well in familiar places, don’t you?

Except that this room is too full

of everything I might have been

running away from: you will be

back for the summer holidays,

won’t you? Mom would like that.

I did not catch the train back,

nor did I try that summer when

father said he was ill: come home

as quickly as classes end, your

father would like that. Come home.

It has been some time since I last

dusted off the cobwebs and dirt

from the sill and the pictures

in this room. I stare at them longer

now praying they would talk back:

You’ve come home at last. Stay,

stay longer, we would like that.

There’s catfish to hook at the river

a stone’s throw from home. There’s

black berries to gather for wine.

They stare back at my wan face

from the confines of the ornate frame

and the bursting memories in sepia:

Father in white gabardine suit,

Mother in her white traje de boda.

I have come home, but I cannot stay.

This room is now full. And empty.

--- Albert B. Casuga

MONOLOGUES: A RIGHT TO KNOW

 

 

MONOLOGUES: A RIGHT TO KNOW

1.

When are you coming back
from the front, son? Sometime
soon, before mom fades away?
Where is this Viet Nam? Iraq?
Afghanistan, Pakistan? Somalia?

2.

Will you take the midnight train,
Betty, and be home Christmas?
Me and the gang, we will throw
a party at the Metro, wait for you,
gulp suds for every train whistle.

3.

I guess he will not be around
for my umpteenth birthday, mom.
You invited him, did you not, he
and that woman in Denver? I
just have to wait by the window.

4.

Is grandpa going fishing with me?
Like last summer, he will drive in
on his old Studebaker, clanking
with a loose tailpipe over cobbles
on our street. Will he? Won’t he?

5.

I will not be away for a long time,

not too long. Before you know it,
some 10,000 sleeps from now, we
will be bowling again in St. Peter’s
Alley, cracking lightning and thunder.

6.

Come away then, come away, while
we can, let’s run through valleys,
swim the rivers with the catfish,
slalom down those snowbound hills.
Come away, Love, to some place away.
 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

TWO POEMS: ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS MEASURING LOVE

TWO POEMS: ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS MEASURING LOVE

 

 

PALABRA DE HONOR

 

How long does wood need to steep,/to stay alive long enough with clay/it loves in the kiln?---From “Each Question is Always the Same Question” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 08-11-11

I would take forever, if I were wood, to steep

in peacock colours and stand tall as a totem
pole. But I am still an uncut trunk, a lookout
point really, staying true to a palabra de honor.*

On my word of honour, even when I am felled

to provide fire for cauldrons or heat for kiln,
I will stay alive long enough as ember until
you have been formed as that earthen jar

to hold what we have always wanted to keep:

all the love and promise moulded in crucibles
of passion molten at last as honey to last us
to the end of our journey beyond this woods.
 
This kiln fire would have long cooled down,
before the flame of this palabra de honor,
my troth and my word, would have flared out.
My trunk will be imbued with lustrous red soon.

---Albert B. Casuga

 

 

HIS PROMISE

 

…If I disappeared into one of the ruby-red rooms/of the pomegranate, would you stain/your fingers to search for me?---From “Each Question is Always the Same Question” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 08-11-11

 

You could not hide from me if you tried,

no ruby-red chambers have room enough
to shield you from my dowse, my heart’s
divining rod, I will find you. I must.

Would stains stop me? Neither will filth.

Each question you ask will be the same
question I will always seek to answer
if this search shall take me from here

to the last seed that would have sprouted

from dry clay hiding your eyes, your limbs,
your mouth in each branch or leaf, or twig.
I shall kiss them all, and I will find you.

---Albert B. Casuga

 

THE AUTUMN OF OUR YEARS: TWO LOVE POEMS

THE AUTUMN OF OUR YEARS: TWO LOVE POEMS

 

 

THE RENDEZVOUS

A ruckus of wind behind the trees

roils the primrose trail and startles
the wayward doe. A dull grey sky
looms as a late sundown darkens
the path where we said we would be:
a rendezvous by the quiet bluffs
where we would have seen the sun
set as we always do, but the overcast
sky is a crowd of clouds now, we
could barely see the crinkled yellow
leaf float like wafted cotton to damp
rocks below, taking forever. Like us.
The autumn of our years, we whisper.
A gust whistles an eerie trace of air:
It is cold. I took time hugging you.

---Albert B. Casuga

 

FINDING THE SEED

 

Let this little garden host your cobbling,
lay them out in the sun. How inchoate
could words ever get when said? Not even
in sorrow or regret. Would loss shear them
of irreversible years of wanting? It is there.
It is always there. But like the mother
of pearl, you forgive that hurt to nourish
what was beautiful then and a stunning
gem now. Like these saplings pushing out
of grounds where as seeds they might
have burrowed into soil absent of tiller,
let them grow rampant. Wild and free
as the wind, they will one day grow strong
branches, refuge of the lost and the winged
warblers that will sing your hammock
songs until you drift into a quiet slumber
from which you will finally wake up to find
him there, caressing your face. Knowing.
Finding the seed that has always been there.

—Albert B. Casuga

 

TWO POEMS ON LOST DOLLS IN WAR AND PEACE

TWO POEMS ON LOST DOLLS (IN WAR AND PEACE)

 

LOOKING FOR JESSICA

(For Marie who lost her Doll)

“Queridisima hija, su muñeca no esta aquí, no esta allá, quizás esta perdida…” *---Her grandfather’s unacceptable explanation.

Frantic, she rummaged through toy drawers, hampers,

Dusty bric-a-brac (long decreed untouchable by Maman
For anything that could break, crack, crash, hurt or kill):
“Jess.  Jess.” She lisped, gesturing to the doddering man,
Clasping her dainty little hands to signal an urgent plea
For help to find her ragdoll, a cherished, hand-me-down
Stand-in for a frayed security blanket gnawed at the edges.

Just as well, her unperturbed grandmère coyly muttered,

Looking up from folding the day’s laundry helter-skelter
On the family room sofa : She bumps into things when she
Runs with her manika*, losing her balance with just an arm
To lead her furious dash to anything she fancies. The doll
Had mud on it when she dropped it into a puddle while
Toddling with her sister, Chloé,  to the school bus. I washed
The dirty little thing. Check the washer/dryer, if it’s done.

She points the old man being pulled away by the elfin girl

To find the missing raggedy, to the crackling machines .
Befuddled, he called out to her: Wala dito. Wala doon. Baka
Nawala!* In his new-found dotard mien (to escape chores),
He pleaded with the cranky child wriggling out of his hold--
Bueno, hija, su muñeca no esta aquí, no esta allá, quizás
Esta perdida---in a fourth language, he calls God’s tongue,
Ending up baffling the wee lass who must think his tone
Was one laced with deep sorrow, nay pain, for her lost doll.
Marie Clementine,* unappeased, lets out a quiet cry: Jess.
 

ELSEWHERE, A GIRL LOOKS FOR NANCY+

A cane, bracelets, a phone, these are among the cherished possessions for Syrian refugees, whose names have been changed to protect them.---The Toronto Star, 03-16-13

Bracelets, Not Nancy

Will Maryam, 8, find Nancy back in Damascus? "I left her.

She is the most important thing to me in the whole world.
But these bracelets are second only to Nancy, my doll,
A gift from my brother working in Jordan, I miss him
So very much, but my mother said we must pray to Allah
So I could find Nancy again and show her to my brother."

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 Translations:

 

*  “Queridisima hija, su muñeca no esta aquí, no esta allá, quizás esta perdida…”  (My dearest child, your doll is not here, it is not there, maybe it is lost.)

Manika (“doll” in Filipino)

Wala dito. Wala doon. Baka Nawala! (Filipino for  It is not here. It is not there. Maybe it’s lost.)

At 19 months, Marie Clementine ‘s father talks to her in French, her mother in English, her grandmother in Filipino, and her grandfather in Spanish. She responds to them quadrilingually with surprising ease.  To assert herself, she uses hand signals. (Taught by her mother, a professional teacher.)

+ Culled from my “The Things They Brought: Six Poems from Refugee Camps”, poems on the Syrian civil war victims published by Axlepin Publishing.