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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.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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
 
 
 
 
 

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