My photo
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.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

THE RED BALLOON


https://www.youtube.com/watch?fe...ature=player_embedded&v=BsqyVB7G5W0


 
    
           
           



  • Albert B. Casuga


     





THE RED BALLOON

 

One would think it

           Would

Plummet

           losing air

In a rigour mortis

No

              T

            Un

Like a dying bird‘s swoon

as it

F

E

LL

to the rubble  

              where he

found

         its crumpled likeness

Scuttling

            in the                         wind.

 

An old face,

he might have whispered,

while he felt the crowding of mournful  balloons

wrapping themselves into his arms in an embrace,

 a silent dirge

                       echoing

                                          atop

roofs watching him float into the noontime sky

marking a death in the family and a triumph of a dream.

                         The wrinkled remains

             Of his red balloon

                                                Was a wide smile

                                            Left on the rooftop

                     As it it bade

           Goodbye

    To the

Lad

It

found dying to play their follow-the-leader game to its end.

Or

Beginning.

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

June 5, 2014, Mississauga

 

 

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