A LONG QUESTION

A LONG QUESTION



An old strand of caterpillar silk at the wood’s edge shimmers in the sun. A crow keeps saying something urgent in four syllables. ---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-03-12


 It must go back to more magical times,
 when the sun rises like a fiery blossom
 over the ridge, and a lone crow croaks
 its monotone: kah-kah-kah-kah! Could
 it be the one lingering note, a sad refrain
 of awe and reverence for the sun god
 cut down since to a constantly ho-hum
 yo-yo motion over ridges, lakes, or bays,
 it must now be invisible like the wild
 dandelion cut wantonly off manicured
 lawns, even its shimmer on gossamer
 silkworm strands glistening on twigs
 attracts longer glances than metaphors
 that have lost their lustre in the hands
 of some inept moulder of words, crystal
 jars that could have held those sunrays
 at a standstill and lit the dark hallways
 that needed to warm-over the frigid
 goodbyes of lovers who have loved and
 lost, but know that mornings are new
 days with new sunrises at the wood’s edge?

 The crow on the branch must know a more
 urgent omen, it cackles its warning quite
 like the staccato of a grumpy tetrameter,
 as if it were demanding an answer to its
 question: What if the sun does not rise again?
 Or another: When will the sun not rise again?



—Albert B. Casuga
 04-03-12

Out in time for the second sunrise, when the sun clears the near ridge and appears among the trees, an impossible blossom. ---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-02-12

AN ALLEGORY

AN ALLEGORY
 
…We dangle/ thoughts above ourselves/ like fishing lures to draw out/ a response and end up/ feeding our feelings. We want/ to be helpless to their strength.---Hannah Stephenson, “Strong Feelings”, The Storialist, 04-02-12

 
 Even that nutty rodent stops short
 Of its kamikaze threat, twirls, jumps,
 Lands on the feline foe twice its size,
 Snarls for all its worth, but the fancied
 Bully glides gracefully away, wagging
 Its dismissive tail: she does not do nuts,
 Besides, pipe down Squire, your guess
 Will choke you yet. How much thought
 Is required to burn this side of the woods?

 It took a rock-hard crock of a lie to kill
 A 100K in the Iraq War, no weapons
 Of mass destruction could kill that many
 In a cranky year; it should not take this
 Buck-teeth nut its fear to lay its throat
 For early-spring rending. Yet, it is grand
 To flex muscle where there is none
 To feel towering, herculean strength
 Ooze through grass-like veins awhile
 And fade away into a quivering branch
 With its purloined bud of cherry…

 Mayhaps, guessing still how dread
 Becomes a dream, becomes a reason
 For quartering all those Taliban, Syrian,
 Maguindanao, Kampuchean children,
 Old and injured beyond their time
 When strife that maims and murders
 Are still a monopoly of learned men
 Who play and sleep with napalm bombs,
 And stridently yakking presidents
 Who ask not what your country can
 Do for you, but ask what you can do
 To vaporize old women, old men, children
 And their poultry, too, and hope mankind
 Can also make a playground of the moon.

 Ah, how we think we can make our hearts
 Love, and suffer the wounds and tears
 That come after. I think, therefore, I feel.
 I feel, therefore, I may be alive. Or happy.
 I think.

 The rodent on the twig stares at the cat
 waiting under the tree, and quakes. I think.

---Albert B. Casuga
 04-02-12
 

OLD WOMEN IN VACANT LOTS

OLD WOMEN IN VACANT LOTS


Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;/ The worlds revolve like ancient women/ Gathering fuel in vacant lots.---T. S. Eliot, “Preludes”, Collected Poems 1909-1935


1.
Debris around the empty schoolhouse
have been cleared, gathered into motley
piles neatly lined on where the road was
before that too crumbled with village
life; only the old women stayed longer
than any of the taut-jawed rescuers now
back in cities where Ishinomaki is just a
dot in the grids pressed upon the brittle
maps. The temblor and the tsunami
are still everything to them: raw feelings,
ceaseless nightmares of weeping men
picking up limp bodies of children dug
out of the rubble, still tightly clutching
their shredded books and broken crayon.

2.
Their gnarled fingers and weary faces
stick out like bookmarks at the last light
of sundown, clipped between pages of rags
flapping in the uncertain weather, while
they move in little circles like crayfish
clambering over what remains of the yard
that once teemed with laughing children;
they would stop to talk over the muffled
rumble of the excavators, and bend quickly
to glean more rubbish or gather briefly
to touch and bless a tear from a blouse or
a piece from a muddied shirt they would
gently put away in their bamboo baskets.

3.
Other times, other seasons, they would
be here picking up ripped twigs dried
on the banks of the river at the foot of the
hill, fuel for the vats of the sweetened
yams they would boil to regale the boys
and girls gathered around them at school
break, laughing as raucously as the wee
urchins, while wiping their caramelled
lips with shawls they would wrap their
heads with when they walk down the hill,
to wait for another daybreak of fuel
picking,  praying for a kinder season. Soon.



---Albert B. Casuga
01-04-12
 

HAVING FUN

NATURE’S WAY WILLY NILLY

Thin fog. A yearling fawn play-mounts his mother, and is mounted in turn by his twin. A robin tut-tut-tuts from the driveway.—Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 03-31-12

There will be room enough for them, too,
when this hoary place will no longer hold
us in the edges of the woods we find. We

will, like these Morning Porch fawns see
to it that we would have accepted hook,
line, and sinker the Holy Orders: Go Ye
and Multiply! So multiply it is and Occupy.

The robin’s tut-tuts are not misplaced,
but it is done on the safety of the driveway,
like governments demure when they put
meddling fingers in lovers’ bedrooms
and counsel: Thou shall not overpopulate.

They never say, though: Do not copulate.

—Albert B. Casuga
03-31-12

TALES ON ARRIVING WHERE WE STARTED

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr.

TALES ON ARRIVING WHERE WE STARTED

We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time. ---T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”, Four Quartets

1.

By the time we got back,

the river had run dry.

Did we not plant stones

here to mark how far we

could swing on the vines

before springing naked

into the murky mudpool

to swim with the carabaos?

Look, the boulder of hearts

is still there—with names

of the little boys who died

stealing unhusked corn

from the bursting granary

of the only farmer in town.

Before hanging himself

from the barn’s only rafter,

he singed the bales of rice

and hay covering the sacks

where they hid, giggling

as they watched maestra

wrap her clean legs around

their math teacher’s waist,

and cried endlessly for god

or gods, for she felt good.

2.

The fire ate them all, lads

still convulsing, teachers

still locked and quivering,

tubercular farmer dangling.

If the river were still here,

it would roar with stories:

the boy who survived, he

became the town mayor,

and he had the river bend

away to parch that farm

and plant the rock naming

it The Hardest Monument

for lads who still guffaw

when comparing versions

of that tale about the boys

burning while their eyes

melted popping, and their

cheating mentors rolling

on the hay, while farmer

firebug swung his cuckold

heart away watching his

unhusked corn stock move

and his piles of hay tumble

pell-mell amid entreaties 

to the gods to make those

burning moments last.

Rain caught us munching

corn from the burnt cob

at the corner store ran by

the farmer’s orphaned girl

who kept laughing at our

raunchy tattle-tales of fire

and monuments to tickled

voyeurs watching lovers burn.

Like old men in empty spaces,

we come back here to laugh

at what meaning we could

gather from our beginnings.

--- Albert B. Casuga

03-29-12

A STILL POINT

A STILL POINT

At mid-morning, the sky grows dark. Rumbles of thunder over the noise from the interstate. A small, white petal flutters down.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 03-28-12

Sense and notion meld
where sound is sight,
and stillness is moving.

It completes an oxymoron
for the day: What crack
of thunder and flash
of lightning would slice
this mid-morning sky
when the delicate petal,
small and white, finally
reaches the black, soggy,
and grass-mottled ground?

Closer to some still point,

on mid-day, I gulp my tea,

and gather all empty cups.

—Albert B. Casuga

03-28-12

GRAFFITI 4: PAINTING PARADISE

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 Last Thing”, 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 to 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