Words Swerve Today

 
 
Words today swerve
like sweet lace,
pivot like fine dandelions,
as though life were an obelisk
turning blue in winter dark,
as though gerunds could sleigh
with pretty participles
as though adjectives would smoke
in a dark, unknown
as though language
were just transparent.
A see-through Norwegian melody,
Mina Loy and H.D. naming new,
an unplayed melody
played in the mind.

© Linda E. Chown

Born on the West Coast of the United States, Linda E. Chown studied at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University and University of Washington, later teaching creative writing and American Literature at Grand Valley State University. She has published four books of poetry, and has research interests in narrative perspective, women and modernism; some of her work can be seen at Empty Mirror Books. Engaged in restoring literature and inner life to a central place, and to encourage independent thought and creative action, she is writing a new kind of prose, specifically to approach women’s experimental writing in experimental ways.