Three People | Linda Chown

To Albert Camus

It is to say maman
To think of her arms 
Kneading dough 
in a cold  Algiers kitchen.
It is to say time lasts large in him.
It is to love the noon light 
Unconditionally  
His nervous face a web
Of his contradictions
Such a sweet forehead
He had love for a life unbound by human
     smallness and greed
It is to say he swung 
His life fervently in a glowing transcendence,
That we could choose to overcome ourselves 
To set our conscience free 
and each other.

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For Alison Krause

In her honor—she was killed at Kent State May 4, 1970.

The girl who placed
     the stem in a gun
Said I’m hit
And all the world burst
Into blood
As the bullet burrowed
And buried its cold metal
Thrust in living lungs.

And the world’s TVs centered
The world’s eye on
The rough shed minuet of death
On a campus lawn.
And later one said

What they said
With feeling,
Or built flimsy backgrounds
And gasped flatly.
But the fact remains

And gives more body to your name:
The moment perceiving
The violation of skin,
The way the invisible I is denied
And the heroic future
Disappears in an instant
Locking self in an eggshell
And everything you love
Darkened.

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Annie Knows

The day grew gaunt like
Old gas. It grew crying because of the dying there
     and the
People just wanting to pray
To say words of the scripture 
And give them a picture to rest

Put me on a raft and
Gather my
Forces compress them
Lordy before I fall
Light my
Body up Annie told
Cousin Hilda
Annie said guns stink
Like old meat loaf
People’s bodies like rank lamb
Stew so that we do have reason to
Kill killing that it is said the wise man Enoch in Kathmandu
     washes his clothes with mint leaves  and
     cat nip. They pile up
Sacred to the ground 
Leave off this thick red bleeding that foul stick paste
All over the place 
Annie knows my heart lines 
And my word rafts

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©2023 Linda Chown
All rights reserved

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