6/16/2011

A loud blast from the quarry two miles away: the kind of literal “terrorist attack on American soil” nobody but the neighbors ever mentions.

3 Comments


  1. A DIALOGUE ON A QUARRY

    It is a Point Zero thing, Stick; no one talks about it now
    except the minute men, make that capitals: M & M.

    No, not those candies, silly. But never mind. That blast
    could have been heard around the world if it were there.

    Wall (Money) Street, the United (Debating) Nations,
    Greenwich Village, Chinatown, the Nooyawktimes,

    the Clinton Bronx, ad misericordiam. What would
    America be minus them? But, pray, not Hollywood!

    Oh, we “will bear any burden, oppose any foe…”
    It’s why we have footprints on the moon, the Internet,

    Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! and Lord, the CIA.
    What would this planet be without these amber waves

    of grain? This land of the brave, this home of the free.?
    I say, Stick, that’s one too many blasts from two miles

    away. Praise Yahweh! But that must be the quarry boys
    down there, blasting the minerals out, fossil for our Fords,

    and gold. Elsewhere, my errant friend, when downstream
    natives in the Philippines hear a blast one too many, they

    will hasten with their basins to sieve the golden morsels
    downriver, as they did in Ye old Yukon north of the border.

    And in old Benguet, in the boondocks of the Flip’s Mountain
    Provinces, in the Itogon mines. Saturday nights in the grills

    of Baguio City, that pinetree haven of my youth and undying
    affection: all suborned by the American presence. Bullions.

    Sinatra asked once in that song: What is America for me?
    An M&M neighbour (shhh…) said: Dang! A land of the free!

    Beware the wrath of the little citizen in Plummer’s Hollow:
    he says: never again; his Hispanic brother: Nunca jamas!

    Never again will American blood be shed in American soil!
    Stick, aroused from stupor asked: Where then, milord?

    Where? I gulped down my cup of cold tea—Nestea?—and
    spat it out. Shut up, Stick, geopolitics on this porch is risky.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    06-16-11


    1. Dave,
      Spell Check, please. (in line 14, strophe 7) Line should read:
      I say, Stick, that’s one too many blasts from two miles
      (too sted of “two”)
      (In line 18, strophe 9) Line should read:
      natives in the Philippines hear a blast one too many, they
      (too sted of “two”)
      It was a mnemonic play, but an error nonetheless. Hope these corrections are not one “too” many. But please, amigo.

      The seriousness of the “geopolitics” and American “presence” elsewhere demanded this length. I hope I have not grabbed “too” much space.
      But note the use of colloquials to prevent it from becoming maudlin—you know, “land of the free” and “home of the brave” stuff (could become saccharine). Whitman or Arlington-Robinson might haunt us hereafter. (:—0)


  2. Peals of thunder fill my summer night; this storm reminds me
    Of the blasts Dave Bonta said he heard from last night’s Morning Porch.

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