Books and the Other Side of Things | Linda Chown

I Want To Read Books

I want to read books that 
live in the air, that turn colors 
into permanent shrines as Cather and Carver 
each commute our psychological entrapments
Into shapes of blue boats and white clothes 
flapping in a midsummer breeze.
It is to say I want to hold 
on to something so that words
are not what I have to use 
when I talk to you 
but beacons and lifejackets 
in the rage of the line, 
the ripple of the moment 
when everything goes on through 
and into  each other. 
Writing is our shrine to live by, 
to learn from, to shine for.

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To The Other Side of Things

In the spring reading Ripley's colored
Believe books, I thought of Wonderland 
and hookahs, of the ways things go through 
each other to the other side of things.
An eloquent vanishing.
Not just any bell book and candle,
But Kim Novak effervescent on Powell Street
Elizabeth Taylor shining gold
Near where the water was, 
near where the mysteries lay uncovered.
Where the swami speaks of transformation 
and solid things shiver
Bigger

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©2022 Linda Chown
All rights reserved

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