Gustav Fabergé is lost in thought with a half-dozen eggs,
“Weeping urchins hanging off eaves, smelling like something.”
Weeping urchins hanging off eaves, smelling like something
O my swan, how, absent handles, shall we proceed?
(How, too, absent directions?)
The boy stops at the door.
“Gentle door, open, O please do!
No no! I eat so little!”
And the sun, especially yellow that late afternoon,
fulfills a deathbed wish.
Asterisks, fungi, a hint of flailing snails
a voice whisp’ing “Pillage!”
Expressionless mammals standing in snow,
who speaks for them?
That would be me, also recalling unfortunate trysts.
One finds me on tenterhooks,
muttering a leave-taking including bagged edibles.
Creole malaise requires participation.
Sensing no further despondencies, I decommission
and decompose.
"August Poem" is one of nine poems by Mike Silverton (under the heading "Ten Acuities") in the print edition of Clam No. 11.
Mike Silverton is most recently the author of Anvil on a Shoestring (2022), Trios (2023), and Yoga for Pickpockets (2024).
His poetry appeared in the late '60s and early '70s in Harper’s, The Nation, Wormwood Review, Poetry Now, some/thing, Chelsea, Prairie Schooner, Elephant and other publications he may have (and most likely) mislaid. William Cole included Mike’s poems in four anthologies: Eight Lines and Under, Macmillan, 1967; Pith and Vinegar, Simon and Schuster, 1969; Poetry Brief, Macmillan, 1971; and Poems One Line & Longer, Grossman, 1973.
As a culture go-getter, Mike produced poetry readings for The New School for Social Research, New York’s municipal radio station, WNYC, and Pacifica Radio’s WBAI, KPFA, and KPFK. One glaring regret: Mike had arranged to record Frank O’Hara on the week in which he was killed, the weekend intervening, by a dune buggy.
Mike’s music writing, centering on modernist classical, appeared in Fanfare, a bimonthly review, and several Internet publications, including his own LaFolia.com. Mike's reviews of high-end audio hardware appeared in the main in The Absolute Sound, a print publication, and StereoTimes.com. For the unlikely audiophile reading this, Mike's speakers are Wilson Audio Sasha W/P.
When Mike and Lee relocated from Brooklyn to Midcoast Maine in early 2002 he indulged an interest in Dadaesque assemblage, resulting in several works in a group show at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, and a one-man show at Belfast’s Aarhus Gallery. Mike and Lee’s 1842 house and barn are peppered throughout with work he’d have preferred to sell. (Jefferson Davis spent a night, obviously at an earlier time. Really.)