Freely Espousing

written by


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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