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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.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

A PRETEND SABBATH IN RENO


 
A PRETEND SABBATH IN RENO
 

Fancy seeing houses of prayer
called churches here in the belly
of a desert that deserted prayer
when it offered gold, wine, women,
songs, endless carousing into nights
proclaiming a paradise regained
where raucous laughter and gasps
of lust and wanton desire spill out
of parlour balconies above streets
that promise to snake into a haven
on asphalt and the promise land
of a Sodom and Gomorrah reprise
when defiant joie d’vivre was a
cackle of coupling or a lusty gargle
of wine drowning the din of anger
thrown like fists into a dark sky.
We will be happy again, we will,
or perish trying to make pretend
castles, pyramids, even churches, real.
 

---Albert B. Casuga

Las Vegas, 03-29-14

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