Two Poems [by Mitch Sisskind]

Hugh Hefner

For the exordium of a bon vivant lifestyle

In the dour and savage city of Chicago

He merits all the appreciation in the world.

Here's what I mean. In 1953 I attended

A terrifying professional wrestling match

At the old Marigold Arena between

The heel Dick The Bruiser Afflis and

Bobby Managoff whose actual name

Was Manoogian. I say terrifying

Because the onlooking mob of janitors

And their wives was screaming for blood

Yet that very night the first issue of

Playboy was approaching readiness

Which was nearly called Stag Party.

 

Three Sonnets on Lines of Ashbery

 

1.

We've heard lots of names here

Tonight but I'll tell you one name

We have not heard which is the

Name of Slobodnik who was

The janitor at the high school

Where I worked and one day

He said swimming is good for

You because swimming gets

The crud out of your pores so

I have remembered his words

Spoken around 1975 just like

Neither have I ever forgotten

The line here a scarf flies and

There an excited call is heard.

2.

We have heard a lot of names

But one name we have not heard

Is Smolarek the Wisconsin man 

I used to play basketball with

And he always won but then

I won so the next week he won

Again and he stated how he

Wanted to win today so he

Fucked not his wife last night

Nor that morning either in 1975

Which I remember as clearly as

Whose wind is desire starching

A petal whose disappointment

Broke into a rainbow of tears.

3.

The last name we have not heard

Is Greene how we were on the

Drill field and he started screaming

Supplementary get your goddamn

Ass out here now where the hell is

Supplementary get your slack ass

Out here Supplementary and we

Had no idea what he was talking

About for there was nobody named

Supplementary and then suddenly 

It dawned on all of us at once like

A miracle that he meant Sulloway

Which I have n'er forgot just like

Now I let you go signed The Dwarf.

 

Comments

[David Lehman]

Slobodnik was pound for pound the best of the many janitors in the running.

[jim c]

Maybe. But I'm partial to Williamson from North Carolina, who, after the Beatles came over in '64, the kids called "Moptop" because he didn't have any hair.

[Kenneth Braxton]

Underrated for sure.

[Peggy Rieseling]

I like a rainbow of tears. Did you make that up?

[Sam Well]

Whatever happened to the bon vivant ideal? Including Playboy, NY night clubs, Hollywood and Vegas?

[Kenneth Braxton]

I believe Ashbery wrote that phrase.

[Peggy Rieseling]

Whom does the Dwarf represent?

[mitch sisskind]

I'm not certain when JA wrote "Thoughts of a Young Girl" but it appeared in his book "The Tennis Court Oath" (1962.) I believe that autobiographical content in JA's work is more overt in his early work than later, and I also believe that as he got older he looked more like a dwarf than before. But he seems always to have had something of a dwarf-like mien, so perhaps there is a self-referential element in "Signed, The Dwarf." Also, as a widely-read individual who also looked like a dwarf, JA must have known Poe's amazing dwarf story "Hop Frog," as well as Pär Lagerkvist's 1944 novel "The Dwarf."