SUNDAY SILENCE

SUNDAY SILENCE


 Fragments of sky are still visible behind the haze of new leaves. The cattails are shedding;  tufts of down drift by. That Sunday silence.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-29-12


  It’s been some time since I heard that Sunday silence.
 Grandfather saw me tiptoeing away from his chair,
 his eyes half-closed, I suspect now, and he called out
 weakly, but that sounded like thunder to me then.
 Ven aqui, hijo. I had to toddle to his rocking chair,
 having been caught sneaking into the kitchen where
 grandmother grated coconut flesh from its shell.
 He stroked my head, closed his eyes, said nothing.

 One other Sunday, at the hospice, I must have roused
 the bejesus out of the elderly residents when I puled
 like that little boy again, seeing my wan Father in bed,
 a bedpan half-filled with cathetered urine on a chair
 where the harried attendant must have left it absently
 when he prowled for someone to lift this limp man
 up so he could fulfill his sporadic ablutions. Silence.
 He rasped: Go home, you are drunk. Don’t scare us.

 It’s another silent Sunday. I stoop out of bed, look out
 to a fragment of sky beyond the finally sprung leaves,
 and feel like a thousand more years than my sixty-nine.
 Someone from the kitchen said it was my birthday.


—Albert B. Casuga
 04-29-12

This is Poem #29 in my poem-a-day project to celebrate National Poetry Month (April 2012). A birthday poem.

YEARNING FOR THE OTHER SIDE

YEARNING FOR THE OTHER SIDE



Don’t add my name yet to the names of the dead on the wall. Don’t carve their letters edged in gilt on a crypt.---Luisa A. Igloria, “That shore from which we first pushed off, how far away is it now?”, Via Negativa, 04-25-12



 When death and dying are lumped together
 as “kicking the bucket,” there seems little
 reason for a lachrymose ritual that will cost
 a lifetime’s nest egg. And yet, and yet.
 A send-off at sea is as good as any–one
 is flushed off the starboard to become part
 of whence life came, or where it ends. Debris.

 Do not send for whom the bell tolls, some
 tired man holding a ready bucket of waste,
 warned the unready, unprepared, or untidy.
 Inexorably, inevitably, the bell takes its toll.

 Like a confusing game, kicking the bucket
 is nothing but a tiresome waiting game.
 Let the jasmine bloom where they may,
 when they may; no one has yet come back
 to say if they, too, were enriched by manure
 from the overturned pail, nor say, when the day
 the game ends, they had no bucket of waste.


—Albert B. Casuga
 04-26-12

This is Poem #28 in my poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month (April).

THE STAND-OFF

THE STAND-OFF


Watched by a chipmunk at the end of the stone wall, I hold a mouthful of coffee in my cheeks, do my best to look as if I know how to live.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-26-12


 What does he know about being alive
 that the chipmunk would not know?
 Would laughing at his misadventure
 be one of his given talents? When he
 mimics the nutcracker with puffed-up
 cheeks worked out by a mouthful
 of caffeinated brew, might the rodent
 hysterically guffaw (in its own style),
 when he chokes on the mis-swallowed
 coffee, coughs his lungs out, spins
 out-of-body in a near-death episode?
 Betting odds: Who gets to laugh last?



–Albert B. Casuga
 05-26-12

Here’s Poem #27 in my poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month.

HIS UNFINISHED HOUSE THERE

HIS UNFINISHED HOUSE THERE



...But for/ travel, scarcity. I am/ leaving room. I am/ willing away all that/ I do not need.---Hannah Stephenson, “Traveling Light”, The Storialist,  04-25-12



He said there was the old Bulova watch
hanging on the nail behind the door
in his room. It still works. It is yours.

He willed away a relic he did not need,
there was no pawnshop there anyway.
His turned down thumb belied his smile.

There was always his other word for away.
When I go there, I will be there awhile,
and there is no coming back there. None.

He looked away then, pointing to a frame
on the hospital wall, Our unfinished house,
finish it. It is yours. But shelter everyone.

He gave me time when there was none
left to finish his house so he could go there.
There was nothing he needed there. Nothing.



---Albert B. Casuga
04-26-12

This is Poem #26 in my poem-a-day project to celebrate National Poetry Month (April 2012).

GRAFFITI 6, SOLTERA: A TRIPTYCH

GRAFFITI 6: SOLTERA


1.
Those were her graffiti on the quartet
of trees atop the park hill. He saw them.

Will you marry me? That would have
sounded like a doleful plea. A dare, maybe?

Get those trees to say them. She plotted.
After all, were they not his conspirators

on those sultry nights when they would
giggle at the slightest tickle of twig or cone

on their backs? Be gentle with me, she said.


2.
She is back on the park’s toboggan hillock,
this time with the child he would not have.

Mother, she said, look at how happy they
Are. They are all, all my children now!

She could not see their faces from the hill,
but she could make their laughter out

over the din of bells calling them back
to the nursery school her brave girl built.

Be gentle with them, Maestra, she said.


3.
Soltera,* she would introduce herself ,
as she would have described her mother,

except this strong woman in her arms,
looking bravely at the stream of children

toddling behind them, would not admit
to her being alone or lonely. Graffiti on

the quartet of trees have long disappeared
under unforgiving barks. But they are there.

Be gentle with me is a warning, not a plea.



--Albert B. Casuga
04-25-12


*Soltera-- single, alone.

This is Poem #25 in my poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month (April)

DRUTHERS

DRUTHERS


Snow falling faster than it can melt. Unto every one that hath shall be given, says the sky: hawthorn and bridal wreath now twice as white.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch



 If he had his druthers, he’d rather not be given:
 too little time for too much to give back on.
 A keen eye to see both sides of a magic coin?
 Be a magistrate then, look for the right and just.
 And snow falling faster than it can melt?
 What ever for? He’d rather they all blow back
 to whatever skies they’ve fallen from. Too late
 anyway for the grandkids who prayed as hard
 as the grumbling Imam now hoarse with his
 praying at the muezzin. What’s a hillock for
 if it is not snowbound for tobogganing? He will
 not suffer the little ones to miss their winter
 sleigh. On the other hand, this could be a wayward
 winter storm giving back a late wallop for having
 been given a welter of clouds and a clash of heat
 and cold. He said it’s worth a shrug, like cold tea.


—Albert B. Casuga
 04-23-12

This is poem 24 of my poem-a-day project for the National Poetry Month (April)

GRAFFITI 5, TWO POEMS: TREE TRUNK THOUGHTS

GRAFFITI 5, TWO POEMS: TREE TRUNK THOUGHTS


1. Reading Graffiti

He thought he read it right, graffiti on his path:
Voice, Love, Peace. Then Frogs on the nursery.

How could he have missed the toboggan hillock,
At the road’s fork as the terminal for those words?

Voice love peace, frogs; frog’s peace love voice:
Reading them coming from or going to the park

Is like reading Braille with stone blind eyes. Try
Intoning them like a soloist’s sol-fa sans sound,

A mute contralto, or mimed oxymoron. Meaning
Flies in the face of urgent pleading. Graffiti must

Yell its halloo, to reach out to all those cavorting
On the grass beyond the asphalt, among the trees

On the children’s hill, (the winter’s peace offering
For lovers of slush and snow). Graffiti must punch

The heart of the numb, scare it into beating again.
Quite like a prima volta, it makes a quick return

To the melody lest it be lost in a rude cacophony
Of inadvertent refrains. Voice love and peace,

Not the vulgar croak of a frog plastered for eyes
And ears to sense on despoiled walls or fences.



2. Re-Reading Graffiti (On Trees)

Because he craved a clear picture of the sunset,
An old man’s attempt at a silent prayer, he took

The challenge of the little hill, trudged to its top,
And found the gentle tale-end of what otherwise

Would have been a jarring sequence of useless
Graffito on the ground or up the walls. Eureka!

Four trunks facing the sun bore the last four
Words that started on the street and cross over

To the footpath of the hill that seemed to echo
With children’s laughter. A quartet of trees like

The praetorians on the Hill, basked with unlikely
Planned graffiti: |WILL| |YOU| |MARRY||ME?|

Lend voice to love and peace. Will you marry me?
Was it a lovesick lad’s supplication? Or a fearful

Girl’s who dreaded the broken troth of a sulking
Swain when told he would make a good father?

At sundown, even the glorious bravura of light
Could not distract him from an unfolding story.

Why would lovers dread the prospect of a child?
He asked the trees absently.  They were silent.



---Albert B. Casuga
04-22-12

These poems continue the Graffiti Series I started last March. As Poem #22 and Poem #23, they are part of the poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month (April). 



Reposting Graffiti 4 here which I neglected to post in Ambit's Gambit last March. It was published then in http://albertbcasuga.blogspot.com on March 27, 2012.



GRAFFITI 4:  PAINTING PARADISE


I am/  going to learn me some joy/  if it is the last thing I ever do. ---Hannah Stephenson, “If It Is the LastThing”, The Storialist, 03-26-12

You have your paintbrush and colours. Paint paradise, and in you go. ---Nikos Kazantzakis



I will learn me some joy is as good a graffiti
as any, if I were that roving paintbrush bandit
doing what plastic surgeons do on old faces.

Rather than spew mischief and hate on walls
that could not even cringe about bad spelling,
why can’t these muffled, lonely night rogues

take their rainbow mayhem to a bravura end?
Paint themselves their paradise, walk right in,
toss a tumbler of brandy, dance a wild whoopee,

learn from throbbing sunrises and loud sunsets,
that someone, somewhere beyond the clouds,
has bested them in this arresting colour game

of crystals at thaw, verdance in spring, foliage
paintings at fall, and dry earth in summer sepia.
There are graffiti artists and there is the Artist

who has painted himself his haven, entered it,
hung himself a hammock, hued himself happy,
and guzzled raindrops washing colour away.


---Albert B. Casuga
03-27-12

HOW A POEM IS USED (TO REGALE SENIOR CITIZENS)

(Please click on the image to zoom on text.)

Sampaguita Senior Citizens Club 32nd Anniversary Speech

Madame Club President Mrs. Efrena Chaves, Officers and Members of the Sampaguita Senior Citizens Club, the 32nd anniversary celebration committee, distinguished guests, my fellow senior citizens, ladies and gentlemen.

My senior spouse (Ad lib: I will get into trouble for calling her thus; she'd think I have junior ones. Then again, that could be complimentary. Senior, like a rank higher, right?)  and BFF (best friend forever in teen-age language) and I thank you for graciously inviting us to attend your 32nd Anniversary (why, in another 28 years, the club will have caught up as a senior club!).  I assure you, I understand that this must be your friendly way of reminding me that I, too, have grown old. Tatanda at kukupas ka rin!.(translated: You will grow old and fade away!) I am gratified that quite a number of you do not seem to be heading that way; unlike the late John Wayne, you are not about to ride into that sunset. I am referring to you, Mrs. Chaves and your actively happy and unfading members.

My friends, I have a favourite verse quotation that I fall back on whenever I am reminded that I have grown old into empty spaces with an empty head. That line from William Wordsworth in his Ode to Intimations of Immortality is what I commend to you today as our desideratum in the twilight of our years, and I quote: “Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour on the grass, of glory in the flower, we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”

What, pray, remains behind? I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, says another poet, Thomas Stearns Eliot. But I must hasten to say that’s not all there is. Since my invitation required my delivering an inspirational talk, let me offer a poem I wrote last night about my study, where I do most of my writing, and most of my snoring, too, these days. I confess that this poem is one realization that makes me find strength in what will be left behind when I go to yet another world.

My wife has been threatening to clean my study up, wallpaper it, throw out those tons of papers (debris of thought and creation I call them), and renovate it into a guest room. I frantically rescued my study by putting my bed in there. Of course, the matrimonial bed is still my first bed, but my wife complains that she rarely sees me there anymore. My nose is more often than not buried in a book or posting on the Facebook. I protest that I am writing literature in my literary web-blog. (You see, I have caught up with the cyber age despite my being a technological dinosaur.) More emphatically, I tell her: Darling, I am sparing your lovely ears from being tortured by my room-rocking snores.

Oh, to the poem, before I digress to more dangerous zones.
 
HIS STUDY

He said wallpapers in his study must be plain,
no flowers, trees, birds, or senseless curlicues
can match the birth-to-baptism-to-birthday
pictures that he prays would include weddings,
births, elf-looking poses of children and theirs,
grandchildren and theirs (he’d be a hundred),
framed and frozen in time, a collection of smiles
that would bind the Earth like a ribbon of glee
when knotted from-pursed-end to-toothy-end.

He said he will be the memento-keeper of long
remembrances, a Methuselah of happy times,
and he would not exchange his role for places
in havens of peace and quiet, he’d have laughter
and surprise squeals of romping lads and lasses,
infants once, gossoons and ingénues forever.

All his waking and sleeping hours are litanies
of joie de vivre: was that Marie on the turf?
How new, yet how knowing her whole-face
smile comes through like a burst of sunshine
that promises a long-drawn spring, a summer
of running across strawberry fields, jumping
into lily-mottled rivers. Was that Matthew
sprawled on the soccer green, his megawatt
grin saying: I’m okay, gramps, okay. Okay?
Was that Chloe in a princess’ veil? Did she
do that regal pirouette, and that wild bourree?
Was that Megan with her palette and canvas,
showing off a portrait of a once chubby Mikee?
Was that him needing help blowing his cake’s
candles, and all ten grandchildren lending it?

Abandon all dread and heartbreak you who
enter this space, this paradise, his artlessly
scribbled sign on his door warned. This place,
this heart, this parlour of warmth and love,
this refuge. He looked at all his frames again;
reminded the renovator: No decor. Just plain.


---Albert B. Casuga
04-20-12
Originally posted in http://ambitsgambit.blogspot.com and http://albertbcasuga.blogspot.com

                                                          
Those pictures on the walls of my study are frozen in time, yet they will not be lost. They sustain my joy in this troubled world. Sometimes, I despair feeling the constant aches and pains, and discomfiture of this proverbial “ageing” process. I challenge myself in the spirit of gender equality: if my wife can age gracefully, so could I. But could I? I may yearn for the peace of that promised other world, our paradise regained as promised by the Man on the Cross, but, while I am still around, I remind myself of the wisdom-filled words of Paul Eluard. Yes, “there is another world, but it is also here.” It still is.

Thank you, and God bless.

04-21-12, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Also in celebration of National Poetry Month (April). Consider it Poem 21.

HIS STUDY

HIS STUDY


He said wallpapers in his study must be plain,
no flowers, trees, birds, or senseless curlicues
can match the birth-to-baptism-to-birthday
pictures that he prays would include weddings,
births, elf-looking poses of children and theirs,
grandchildren and theirs (he’d be a hundred),
framed and frozen in time, a collection of smiles
that would bind the Earth like a ribbon of glee
when knotted from-pursed-end to-toothy-end.

He said he will be the memento-keeper of long
remembrances, a Methuselah of happy times,
and he would not exchange his role for places
in havens of peace and quiet, he’d have laughter
and surprise squeals of romping lads and lasses,
infants once, gossoons and ingénues forever.

All his waking and sleeping hours are litanies
of joie de vivre: was that Marie on the turf?
How new, yet how knowing her whole-face
smile comes through like a burst of sunshine
that promises a long-drawn spring, a summer
of running across strawberry fields, jumping
into lily-mottled rivers. Was that Matthew
sprawled on the soccer green, his megawatt
grin saying: I’m okay, gramps, okay. Okay?
Was that Chloe in a princess’ veil? Did she
do that regal pirouette, and that wild bourree?
Was that Megan with her palette and canvas,
showing off a portrait of a once chubby Mikee?
Was that him needing help blowing his cake’s
Candles, and all ten grandchildren lending it?

Abandon all dread and heartbreak you who
enter this space, this paradise, his artlessly
scribbled sign on his door warned. This place,
this heart, this parlour of warmth and love,
this refuge. He looked at all his frames again,
reminded the renovator: No decor. Just plain.

---Albert B. Casuga
04-20-12
                                                          

This is Poem 20 in my poem-a-day project to celebrate National Poetry Month (April).  Above are pictures of my youngest grandchild and the 10 whose pictures populate my study.

A BRIGHT RAW WOUND

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr., Philippines

A BRIGHT RAW WOUND


There’s the sky’s bright wound again, open, gaping. And its eyes/  are bottomless wells, staring. Too naked, too raw, too much.---Luisa Igloria, “Heartache Ghazal”, Via Negativa, 04-18-12.



How much of a pain is too much?
Is it a bottomless wound, gaping
like the sun when the dark sky
ought really to be shroud of gloom?

Must it cut through every layer
of lost time blurring remembrance?
It will not scab over, it is forever
like all sunrises and all sundowns.

Those haunting eyes that follow him
from the picture resting on a wall
now peeled off its once bright colour,
is the shape of that unending heartache.

“I will cut my heart out before I forsake
you, madre querida,” he promised her
at his father’s deathbed. Like that bright
gaping wound in a naked, blackened sky,

it is a raw sunburst that makes her smile
on the stalking picture a piercing sneer.
How much of pain is too much?
Not as much as her silence even in pain.


---Albert B. Casuga
04-19-12



The white sky’s bright wound slowly scabs over. A groundhog’s head emerges from the hole under the bedroom, its eyes as bottomless as wells---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch prompt.

This is Poem 19 in my poem-a-day project marking National Poetry Month (April 2012).  Thanks to triggers found in Luisa A. Igloria’s “Heartache Ghazal” (which was her response to Dave Bonta’s The Morning Porch prompt and published in his literary blog Via Negativa) , our poetic collaboration continues. Both poets have largely encouraged this writer to top his poem-a-day work by more than 400 after a year and a half of collaboration. Ohio poet Hannah Stephenson is likewise owed for inspiring this writer to create poems out of triggers in her The Storialist, her daily poem blog.