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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.

Friday, September 2, 2011

A FINAL UNPLEASANTRY




A FINAL UNPLEASANTRY 



...There are /unpleasantries for which no euphemism has been /assigned. There’s no controlling this, /that the body fails, that we are scared, and revulsion /lets us turn from the fear fondling us. --- From “Content May be Disturbing”  by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 09-01-11 



Poverty of language must be a polite way
of defining this dread of the undiscovered,
an undefined fear of what we think we know
but cannot really know until we get there. 

But haven’t we softened it away by talking
about someone “passing away, going ahead,
crossing the Great Divide, going gently into
that good night?” What’s wrong with these? 

He kicked the bucket, he cashed in, croaked,
gave up the ghost? He’s dead, the bastard!
That last one must have been an expletive
from an anxious praetorian on Golgotha 

wondering why it took the crucified man
all that time to die before woefully bewailing
how in his time of need, he was abandoned:
Father, father! Why have you forsaken me?  

Nothing can be as fearful as that despair,
nothing uglier. No masking of loneliness
can erase the sting of dying, though poets
now sing: Death shall have no dominion.



---Albert B. Casuga
09-01-11


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