Freely Espousing

By James Schuyler 1923–1991 James Schuyler

a commingling sky

a semi-tropic night

that cast the blackest shadow

of the easily torn, untrembling banana leaf

or Quebec! what a horrible city

so Steubenville is better?

the sinking sensation

when someone drowns thinking, “This can’t be happening to me!”

the profit of excavating the battlefield where Hannibal whomped the Romans

the sinuous beauty of words like allergy

the tonic resonance of

pill when used as in

“she is a pill”

on the other hand I am not going to espouse any short stories in which lawn mowers clack.

No, it is absolutely forbidden

for words to echo the act described; or try to. Except very directly

as in

bong. And tickle. Oh it is inescapable kiss.

Marriages of the atmosphere

are worth celebrating

where Tudor City

catches the sky or the glass side

of a building lit up at night in fog

“What is that gold-green tetrahedron down the river?”

“You are experiencing a new sensation.”

if the touch-me-nots

are not in bloom

neither are the chrysanthemums

the bales of pink cotton candy

in the slanting light

are ornamental cherry trees.

The greens around them, and

the browns, the grays, are the park.

It’s. Hmm. No.

Their scallop shell of quiet

is the S.S. United States.

It is not so quiet and they

are a medium-size couple who

when they fold each other up

well, thrill. That’s their story.

James Schuyler, “Freely Espousing” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1993 by James Schuyler. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, www.fsgbooks.com. All rights reserved. Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1993)

Biography

Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Schuyler was a central member of the New York School. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent his teen years in East Aurora, New York, before attending Bethany College in West Virginia. During World War II, Schuyler served on a destroyer in the North Atlantic and remained in the US Navy until 1947. Before moving to New York in 1950, Schuyler lived for two years on the Isle of Ischia in Italy . . .

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