…pieces of history… | Linda Chown

Crossing Over

The Strait of Gibraltar
Is all a glisten this Veterans Day morning 
Sunlit pieces of history
Matriculate and spin in holy flatness 
Sun surge cups my heart in praise of 
All that came here before.
The wars that surged the coasts 
that impinged like furtive eyes 
The blood rich battles, the hurry
for winning in this tight radiant channel 
This light could dissolve  me in my room 
Looking at painting floating on the wall 
Being nearby this way to Miguel de Cervantes
Maiming his left arm at Trafalgar
In a night smile I touch Miguel de  Cervantes 
Fighting here and Lord Nelson, caps, 
swords and daring Emma Hamilton with a flair
Their ships flaunting the air in zealous lust 
pushing madly through, 
pushing through fervor war hysteria 
aligned in light, bare blood and bones 
In this wild thin space, earth enclosed
To win more in the sea and the sun 
Floating in this straight strait 
To be up to this glorious moment 
Wild living in this brooding loud and dazzling glory
While I drift sorely trying to get earthly
Balance back.

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—Attribution (source)

How War Kills Silence

Skews the words buried 
There. How in the Valley of the Fallen,
the skins of Franco’s  Murdered stink war and shriek 
Deja me estar let me be me
In a silent light which welters
Peaceful living in a bright sky
My soul springs a strange hardiness 
To accost the noise of the killers whose rampant madness 
stifles the splendid sound of soundless Beethoven

I say no pasarán

Today is like waiting on
the Titanic for rising
water to eclipse us. 
Visions of Marcelino Peñuelas 
telling of fascist censorship with the great 
charm of the Spanish language full of lips and dips.
I hear Malvina Reynolds singing in the back seat, 
her spirit constant and believing.
I see all these fighters who would not back down ever.
No pasarán
And me facing a siege of ice
darkening when I want to
read and write. Primeval. Humbling. 
Pegging about with flashlights. 
Rose and Jack faced inevitable waters 
but they had each other. 
Robert Frost knew the terror of ice 
"But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
Tonight the taps will resound 
like thunder claps and I will
memorize my words and see the great ones
fighting for a promised land.

For A New House
Before the Election Poem

It was a military mob, 
swarming 
as a hive might, quite.
A concave movement. 
A kind of cleaving.
The rotten pieces hanging 
as a gang would 
in that shining 
knot of pain evil brings 
ready to bite and cling and stick to.

We the people must leave our dens 
and walk to forever to cut them out 
to let our strong peace beauty spread.
She said I’ll blow your house down.
She said this evil has lit too many fires.
I’ll blow your house down, she said.

Linda Chown…

…is a poet professor musician who now lives in Michigan although her past is coastal: Spain and California. Author of four books of poems and currently finishing her next book, Sunfishing, Linda is a life-long activist, sun lover and dreamer. A hopeless romantic, sometimes inequities everywhere drive her to despair and to writing action.

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