'Use your words . . . and communicate'

 

“Theaim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it'simpossible to make something out of words and not communicate.” – JamesSchuyler

 

APulitzer Prize-winnng poet (for The Morning of the Poem), Schuyler wasborn in Chicago on Nov. 9, 1923.  Acentral member of the “New York School” in the 1960s and ’70s, he published hisfirst major poetry work Freely Espousing in1969.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Schuyler’s,

 

                                             The Day Gets Slowly Started

 

Theday gets slowly started.
A rap at the bedroom door,
bitter coffee, hot cereal, juice
the color of sun which
isn’t out this morning. A
cool shower, a shave, soothing
Noxzema for razor burn. A bed
is made. The paper doesn’t come
until twelve or one. A gray shine
out the windows. “No one
leaves the building until
those scissors are returned.”
It’s that kind of a place.
Nonetheless, I’ve seen worse.
The worried gray is melting
into sunlight. I wish I’d
brought my book of enlightening
literary essays. I wish it
were lunch time. I wish I had
an appetite. The day agrees
with me better than it did, or,
better, I agree with it. I’ll
slide down a sunslip yet, this
crass September morning.