The Best American Poetry

'Dog paraphernalia such as a treadmill...' (by Mitch Sisskind)

Dog paraphernalia such as a treadmill 
Out by the side of the road -- that will

Attract the attention of Citizen Joe
And LE will not be far behind.

Nasko Hooten was in the middle of
A Cococlops keep that time 
When he, Nasko, was matched into 
Molesworth in 2004 in Oklahoma.

Citizen Joe drove by and Joe called 
LE on his cell phone and the next thing 
You know Nasko was talking to the

Female officer just chatting peacefully

And then the male officer horned in! 

He horned in on Nasko Hooten and 

The female officer chatting peacefully 
And Nasko cold cocked the son of a bitch!

You'd have done the same thing 
And so would I have! Nasko Hooten 
And the female officer chatting peacefully
And the male officer horned in!

Six months Nasko got but he got out
After three and I said to him 'Tell me
'What it was like in there' and he said  

'Like Barnum and Bailey every day!'

Laughing that big laugh of his he said 

'It was like Barnum and Bailey every day
'In there! That's exactly what it was like.
'It was like Barnum and Bailey every day!'

I asked him what else it was like and 
He laughed that big laugh of his and said
'Well you don't want to be an old guy
'In there! No you don't to be an old guy!'

Aw haw haw! Aw haw haw haw haw!
He cold cocked the son of a bitch!
It was like Barnum and Bailey in there!
You don't want to be an old guy in there! 

 

The beginning and the end (by Mitch Sisskind)

Matthew Johnson the founder of Fat Possum records brought a group of North Mississippi blues musicians to the world's attention in the early 1990s. Almost all dead now. One most powerful was Junior Kimbrough, whose work Matthew Johnson described as "the beginning and the end of music."

 

Yes, "the beginning and the end" and it's interesting to see very accomplished musicians -- or, for that matter, plumbers, athletes, bartenders, rabbis, airplane pilots, shoe salesmen -- return to the most basic elements of their craft. Doing it with joy and no affectation is surely a mark of greatness.

Hillary Hahn is heap big young violinist. Can play just about anything

And here she does "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"...

         
Yardbird Parker is supposed to have been drawn to this kind of performance, sometimes playing Three Blind Mice on a toy saxophone. But Yardbird Parker might have been mocking his audience a little bit there too fuckin' with 'em a little bit gettin' over on 'em a little bit as members of the fishy tribe deserve.  

Miroslav Tichý (by Mitch Sisskind)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I'm the only person who's unfamiliar with Mitoslav Tichy (1926-2011) and his beautifully subversive photographs, but I just discovered him last week. Tichy was trained as a painter of Socialist Realism in communist Czechoslovakia. He dropped out of the academy, however, and began his work as a photograper. He built his own camera out of wood and cardboard, in line with his belief that he should have the "worst possible camera."

Tichy developed his own pictures -- only one print of each -- and mounted many of them on children's construction paper. The women and girls in his town of Kyjov were his unknowing subjects. Especially under the Communists, this was considered threatening and at first Tichy was often arrested. And the Commies were right. He was a threat to those gray aparatchiks, to the extent that any artist can threaten such beings. Miroslav Tichy's website is here: http://www.tichyfotograf.cz/en/miroslavtichy-home.html. 

Tichy's photographs eloquently speak for themselves. They've been correctly described as expressions of "poetic imperfection." I've spent hours looking at them, and the time has been well-wasted. Here are some examples. You can find many more. As you might expect, in recent years his work has been presented in galleries around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half-a-Whores (by Mitch Sisskind)

Half-a-whores have no set fee
But simply accept such gifts as
Are forthcoming whether clothes,
Shoes, purses, spa days, Land Rovers,
Island getaways, pieds-a-terre,
Wine tastings, red carpet events,
Or, yes, breast enhancement surgery.
But listen up, you half-a-whores,
Breast enhancement surgery is never
An urgent need of yours but is only
Your wish to be eye-candy in public
For your sugar daddy or daddies and
In the bedroom to be youthfully and 
Totally sexual for him or them.

secretsexparty.com

"The cheapest motel in Barstow..." (by Mitch Sisskind)

The cheapest motel in Barstow,
There I received my education,
Groaning air conditioner
No match for faked orgasms
Unavoidable through walls
Nor could even the TV set prevail
Over whores’ continual bogus
Jollifications day and night.
So never fake an orgasm, girls,
That was the lesson I took away.

Do I look older than twenty-four?
It's because my soul is old.
What I've learned from fucking
Needs more than one lifetime
But I hate any God bullshit,
I hate any whore with the heart
Of gold bullshit, I love how laptops
And cell phones have made pimps
Obsolete, I like the word cunt better
Than pussy and I love the word slut.

Giving pleasure to women is what
Men want but most don't know
They want it, the dumb fucks,
How lame is that? Dorks! Hello?
Well, here is the key to the mint:
Class with a touch of wicked sleaze.
A hundred and nine men I've fucked
This year and the biggest prick was
Ten inches long, seven around,
And the smallest was zero point five.

The Dog Man Nasko Hooten (by Mitch Sisskind)

The hard biting type dog like
Grandpa Munster and Coco Clops
And the wrestler type dog
Like Snuffy and Black Eyed Pete --
Those are the main types of dogs.

The hard biting dog likes to bite,
He says, 'I don't care if I win or lose
'I want to get it done with, I don't want
'To spend more time than I have to,
'Fuck all y’all, I will bite your ass!'

But a wrestler type dog like Snuffy
Will take his time, he will meander
About the pit like it's Old Home Week.
When a hard biting dog tries to bite him,
Snuffy will turn it into a wrestling match.

Rickey Ratliff, when he had Snuffy,
He matched into Axa who had a dog
That could bite named Red Nose Jack.
Nasko Hooten from down Alabamy way
Happened to be present at the convention.

As the fight commenced and Snuffy
Was the bottom dog Nasko Hooten
Said to Rickey Ratliff, 'Hey, let's go
‘To the Red Lobster restaurant or
‘Let’s go out to Walt Disney Land

‘Because nothing much will happen here,
‘Rickey, not for a couple of hours at least,’
Said Nasko Hooten, drawling out his words
In that Southern drawl of his, the burly man,
One of the burlier men among the dog men.

He said, ‘Yes, Snuffy will be the bottom dog
‘For a couple of more hours but he will up
‘And win the fight eventually on account
‘Of a real good wrestling dog like Snuffy
‘Will always beat the hard biting dog!’

Becoming more riled up and warming
To his subject Nasko Hooten continued,
‘People are enamored of a hard biting dog
‘But give me a wrestling dog like Snuffy
‘And I will beat your old hard biting dog!’

On and on he went like a man possessed,
‘If the weights are anywhere near equal
‘My money will be on the wrestling dog
‘Like Snuffy, I will bet my last dollar
‘On the Snuffy wrestling dog! Fuck all y’all!’

The APBT (by Mitch Sisskind)

Could anything be more self-sabotaging to a poetry career than 
writing about pit bull fanatics -- and not like Harvard Man George 
Plimpton goes slumming among the pit bull fanatics but from inside
the heads of the pit bull fanatics themselves? Oh God, what is wrong 
with me! 

Ever since I first read the work of the pit bull fanatics in about 1985 
the pit bull fanatics' vernacular has had hold of me like the jaws of 
a hard-biting pit bull! I instantly morph into the identitty of a pit 
bull fanatic whenver I want to, or what is worse when I don't want to!

But for writers the most important thing is to fill up the pages and 
they will write anti-Semitism like Fyodor Dostoevsky or a 39 foot 
long scroll of tortures like Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis 
de Sade, or Emily Dickenson in her diabolical Little Bo Peep 
mode of "My wars are all laid up in books, I have one battle more" 
or Kenneth Grahame whose Mr. Toad expresses not only the 
unpredictablity and tenacity of fetishistic sexuality but also the 
tragic comedy of the artist who cannot choose his dreams but 
rather is chosen by them. 

At the end of his life James Thurber wept that his satires 
had hurt many -- but it was not given to him to write Much Ado 
About Nothing nor could now write King Lear. But he at least 
wanted to write King Lear and this was taken into consideration
when he stood before the Heavenly Tribunal.    

Here is a little dog man poem. And below you can see a video 
where one of the great dog men reminisces and philosophizes. 

The APBT

The dog game has been here since caveman days!
Imagine two cavemen, each the owner of a dog, 
Betting their dinosaurs on which dog will win 
The world's first dog match! Also, Abe Lincoln 
Was the referee at dog matches and for this 
He became known as Honest Abe Lincoln.

Jack Dempsey owned a pit dog and if you saw
Little Rascals on YouTube have you noticed
How their dog named Petey was a pit dog? 
But the Petey dog was not an APBT because 
The APBT did not exist yet, the APBT had not  
Come into being yet at the time of Little Rascals.

Hell, at the time of Little Rascals the APBT
Was only a gleam in Winchell Graff's eye!
Grandpa Munster, Darlene, Field Mouse,
For those dogs and others like them we have
To thank Winchell Graff because he bred 
The first American Pit Bull Terrier game dogs!

 

The Game With The Funny Ball [by Mitch Sisskind]

As the 2013 Super Bowl approaches, it's time to watch Vince Lombardi give a ten minute lecture on his favorite football play. If you're like me, you prefer to skip the introductory content that encumbers many Youtube clips, so just begin watching at 1:08. You'll enjoy seeing Lombardi start to go crazy as his lecture continues. And this is actually just the first of several Youtube lectures by Lombardi on the same play.

           .

Along similar lines, here's an interview with Jim Ringo. He played center on Lombardi's Green Bay Packer team until Lombardi got rid of him because he wanted more money. Ringo looks like George Washington in this video and seems very composed, but he had to be an extremely aggressive player in order to make up for his lack of size. He was also a fervent anti-communist.   

Mitch Sisskind presents a poem by Nevin Schreiner

A poem by my writer friend of many years -->>

 

The Big Bang
 
This took place when they were half asleep
The way you look when you roll over and say Huh?
Dead brained, dream soaked
Lava eyed.
 
While engaged in making a baby
Neither spoke much
Or cared much what the other might say
With the exception of what you wouldn’t exactly call
                                         language
Like:  Oh fuck, Oh Jesus, and the like.
 
They were eighteen.
Collectively, thirty six
Heaving away
Breath, sweat, skin, whatnot
Mingled like Japanese cars after a collision
Limp airbags littering
The  floor
The tv howling away
Someone banging on the ceiling or wall.
 
Nine months later
Sandor Fox arrived
His name a presumptive chariot
Air for a helium zeppelin
A city map
(Instead of a City)
Sprawled on a kitchen table
Or was it a restaurant booth
Amidst red formica dots
Atop laminated
Photographs of eggs.
 
He cried his little lungs out
To be born an American
At the end of
The age of glory
The age America made up
Looking in its mirror that said
Made in Japan,
Crying like a little sewing machine
A cloister, a swift
Soughing wind,
A piece of damp angel food cake
An overcarobonated 7 up.
 
Sandor Fox
 
Born under a pile of bills
Believing in food
Warmth, tits,
Believing in doctors, clergymen
Taxidermy, Congress,
Thinking about five to four
Supreme Court decisions,
Consumed by a need to assert himself
On the next available nipple.
 
The road not taken
Running through his new house,
Animist furniture
Sprouting strange life between velour couch cushions
And he,  Sandor, a cyclone
Whirling inside the mirror of his parents eyes
He’s wet
They’re fat
The family has cloistered itself in re-sold ideas
Shoveling its past into plastic bags
Confronting its future with Glade.
 
Sandor. Sandor. What should we do with you?
Hope of our hope.
Destroyer of nakedness.
Curer of dreams.
What should we do when you wake crying at 2 am
With your parents silently growing in their beds?
When you scream at four am,
The hour dreams are packed up for the night.
When your own tiny brain revolves in your skull
Like the dawn sky, emptying itself of stars?
What should we think about you?
What should we do?
 
I know.
We’ll meet on the street
And I’ll say, Sandor,
Do you realize what we have in common?
We both come from the Big Bang.
No, Silly, not that one,
Not that wet tumbling and rumbling
And fighting and slithering
And skidding, evulsing and sliming:
 
The other one.
  
                          -- Nevin Schreiner
 

 

From the Archives: The terrifying poetry of ping-pong (by Mitch Sisskind)

No Olympic sport is more maddening than ping-pong (I refuse to call it "table tennis.") The way the ball will just nick the corner of the table can drive anyone mad -- especially poets, who are sensitive people by nature.

Kenneth Koch was probably one of the best ping-pong playing poets ever. Had there been an Olympic event combining the two disciplines, I'm certain Koch would have taken home the gold medal. I'm also certain he would have loved the challenge of playing ping-pong while reciting improvised sonnets, or whatever. Well, we will see that in the Upper World!

But Koch was not beyond criticism as a ping-pong player. I'm still kicking myself that I did not actually see the match, but I recall speaking with David Shapiro shortly after he had played Koch in the basement of the now-disappeared Ferris Booth Hall at Columbia. Koch had won the game, but David felt -- and I'm sure he was correct about this -- that Koch had, um, bent the rules a little. Specifically, it was my impression that Koch had tried to create distractions while the ball was in David's court, and I recall David using the term "flapping ostrich."

In Koch's defense, he very often acted like a flapping ostrich -- so should he be expected to stop acting like one when he played ping-pong? We'll have to leave that question to a higher authority. Actually, I believe Koch was also a pitcher on his high school baseball team (Walnut Hills HS, in Cincinnati) and I'm sure his wind-up was a sight to behold. In any case, I happen to believe that Koch was the greatest poet of the New York school, and I'm absolutely certain that he was the best ping-pong player. (But there were probably some good players among the Beats.)

Here is a video of an intense ping-pong match. Don't try this in your rumpus room.

(Ed note:  A version of this post originally appeared on Wednesday, August 13, 2008)