Mike Silverton

[June 2010.]

Scène de Ballet

Perfection? Pfui! Return it to its faultless source!
She cooks, gavottes, blue sparks as clean as, in liquidity awash,
but nay I say, she will not do.
Bring on the lady’s twin, Aurora Sunset Midday Yin
(no kin to yen, currency or urge), followed by Ying,
& better than either or even forever, & so on, etcetera,
at last enmeshed where Quotidia tugs
tasseled gliss&i & frolicsome thugs.

I dashed off in haste: Mere microtones up from ominous pings,
accountancy’s fugues, essence of otter,
Destiny’s mumu engulfing a daughter,
palpability’s badinage,
a fusillade by spasms arrayed
alighting lightly on the splayed,
a setting for a gropes, by which crass device the race lopes along
as deconstructs the deck callèd poop. I hear you, Hosanna,
a Mae West requesting out there in the saline goop,
your spinto urgencies surplusly befouling
aqueous frills in the Deep’s embrace.
One squints to intuit tomorrow’s erasures,
comes away with an ardent Inuit,
excellent benefits, perks. Wow.

Ere we entered our rented campers
The merest dents in th’aether were, short-changing matter
& hey-I’m-only-human! administrative skills.

Read into these gestures ends before spleens,
dirigible dreams,
dank motets in bile braised,
sutured harmonics, leaden spots.

Can bunting disguise an assassin’s world-view?
Camouflage farts?
Provide the glue for klunky mesostics?
Flat-out erotics?
A Phillips-head screw? (Hoo hoo hoo!)
Be Hugo Boss’s Siegfried line?
A varietal whine? A rheum with ague?

I dashed off in haste: He wears a giant sheetrocker’s scowl.
I dashed off in haste: He harbors a huge malaise!
I dashed off in haste: At anti-matter he fusses & fumbles,
stately as portals to outst&ing venues,
bigger even than tectonic bungles
Stuffing feathers up his nose!
Inhaling! Inhaling! Feathers no more!

Your Amazing Leg

I note the point at which your amazing leg tolerates anything,
an observation I file under Marvels Relating to Limbs.
Other possibilities?
Ramen Lao Da’s Ramen Da Xiao,
Jie’s Ramen One Thing / Two,
Crayfish Ramen,
Raimondo’s stew bleu.

After the Rain

Gazing at the glistening treetops, his sister mutters dreamily,
“Aspen, aspirin, aspersions cast & casting … ”
He, likewise dreamily, lays his neck across a stump
& awaits the improbable black-snooded passerby,
the aspens whisp’ring, “Breeze…”

Countess?

1.

“Countess?” “Mist?” “Missed?”

2.

The train derails.
I am a kid. Only. A neglectful youth clapping clamshells
in hope of becoming a percussionist.
I require tutelage.

3.

aHe cart set

drew he die?”

“& Fern&o?”

“Same.”

“& corporeality?”

“Negligible.”

“Two potatoes. The sighing breeze,
this must wait or seem to, pig, & thinking so … ”

Swains in Tombs Hastily Dug

Women hear them, swains in tombs hastily dug.
Rats mayhap? Could very well be.
At length we encounter a sky-like expanse
a little too lacy, too long pants,
a too big hat under which I recall
st&ing atop a discomfited child, its urgent “Uhn!”
suggesting what? Interstellar disquietude?
When I am old enough to ask, you will be dead.

In 1692

Brighter stars were burning then, in 1692.
Among slate rooftops she abode, up spires shimmying,
herself, I mean, in olden times,
calling softly to yet softer clouds,
“Mousie dear? Are you there?”

Tabletops

1.

We anticipate what we loathe
or simmer by default. “Of what bonanza thinkest thou ill,
small smelly churl?”

1B.

The targets outnumber the marksmen.

1C.

He discovers (finds) harlots,
Mademoiselle. This he is who? He who disdains,
scuttling butts? Is this the he of Cloudlet Eight where
dream-answers are gratis, almost.

Who rang? Wherefore these ding dongs?

’Twas Low-Slung Hermal, pusher to the demi-monde.
“Drink & plough whomever you please. Ignore the cost
or may the devil do a hundred chin-ups,
taking moaning me in stride. It is many hours before infamy
& not quite time for din-din, my friend.”
His mouth is much diminished.
He is otherwise our h&somest survivor.

2.

Hope.

3.

Sump pumps weep however shallow the sentiment.

Out Here, in Nature

1.

Out here in Nature I’m really really happy
in teensy tiny ways, wooo hooo!
Froggies in my underpants!

4.

I’ll always be grateful.

Chrysanthemum

Nothing makes me happier than peaceful buttered noodles,
the merest hint of companionship,
& thinking about — who else? — myself,
a white lad formerly, now a big, fat man. I mean forever,
stranger.

Desire compounds the difference
especially on a pedestal. Can you hear me now?
How all my plans turn to l&fill? Be that as it may,
Project 31 (“Flemish Lint”) is rolling right along,
donations are pouring in, lots of fabric, & I will sew until
my beating heart’s humanitarian core is as content
as a chrysanthemum.

Ineligible, Unintelligible

& then? (I meant “& when?”)
Flurry, blizzard, slush
& Dowl&. Dead.
“Can she excuse my wrongs …? ”

The Legend of Chief Sequoia (He Makes Her Squeak)

Printemps! — renewed longings for that of which
one never gets enough, & above all else,
working well with others.

I Am Still Attractive

I am still attractive so tell me your address,
I’ll send you a merkin just for the hell of it, on & off.
Tell me your address & I’ll send you my self
at the end of its trail, trial, travails, it doesn’t matter.
It’s a problem for social engineering.
If you’d like to attend, please just be & leave the rest to me.
We’ll remark how we differ,
dwelling on the differences. The pitch, though, is history
& anything but perfect. In short, improvisation.