Round 7 of 12; I’m already broken
Corner-man, quiet, comforting silence.
Left rib soon to break
Face is a mountain range.
Buzzer, then bell.
Breathe
Breathe.
I am a mountain’s rage.

A pox on you, young’un.
I’ll send you packing.

A price on your head, granddad,
You’re my paycheck, my holiday.

A crashing, a gasping, a noise with no pain
A swing and a miss, a whistling hiss,
then a boom.

He sees the canvas, but
the legs are bloody minded.

Ten second tap, old man
launch your attack,
opponent forced back
onto the ropes.

There, a wince
as they separate, a
clutch of self.

Rd 8 of 12: where he said
He’d end it.
‘The Legionnaire’s an old man,
relic, relative to Adam,
twice as old again.’
8 of 12, 8 of 12,
Breathe deep, old man
‘Forward all guns’.

Crowd roars, surging forwards
pugilistic promises
fiendish friends, feinting
enemies entranced by each others motion.

Dancing, dodging and ducking,
cursing and swearing,
boys become bigger, badder not better.

A right then a left
connects, younger man stranded,
old man brought in,
just as he planned it.

A volley
A salvo
A ceaseless battering.

Still, Legionnaire’s legs hold him up
and that crooked face is still smiling.

“He lives for the fighting,
lives for the beating,
he’s lost most his sense,
but he ain’t no weakling.

Head for his ribs,
stay on the out,
He wants to brawl you.”

Round 9:
He feels the bruises,
hears the music;
Time to dance.
Breathe, each breath,
relish this place, palace of blood.
Yours is up,
all you ever needed to know.

The advance is a slow dance
each has their own few steps.
A shuffle
A slide
A sway
A duck
A bob.

Flashes of crimson,
outside then inside the head,
pain opens ancient floodgates,
primal blood waits
then strikes.

The young tree felled,
An old oak still stands.

1 and 2 pass quickly
walk to No Mans Land

3 and 4 are the start,
beginnings of hope

5 brings a big stir,
6 a heave and
7 a slump.

From then on its
8, 9 and 10

and
‘Mister Monstrosity’
indicates, unconsciously,
practically posthumously,
undeniable superiority

of our
‘Legionnaire’.

Dan

Dan though I believe your premise is hardly plausible, it still makes for a good read. This reminds me of the president's book.

Les

Good work, Dan, but it makes it seem they ain't both losers.

Cheers,

Peter

Since two of my sons are into Mixed Martial Arts, and one particularly likes boxing, I can make good sense of this piece. Experience makes the best teacher and why some of the old timers still often come through. I'll share this as I think my boys would glean much from it. Good job, Dan.

Mary

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2009 11:33PM by UPMarty.

When I was with a band, we had Martial amps

aha...they weren't Marshal Amps? ell oh ell, I can't spell, spell like hell, can you tell?

Thanks for the comments all, I fancied a different style, so I was trying my hand a kind of 'action' poem.
Mary, thanks for your comments, I take it as a great compliment that you sould show it to your sons, thank you.
Boxing is a funny thing, but its got under my skin, so I'll keep it.
Les, I'm not sure what President's book you talk of, being British I'm not that up on my Presidents!
Peter, thanks. I think my natural tendancy is to respect all fighters, its what I was taught. Perhaps this has tinged the poem, that and I can't bring myself to write a truly awful character in a poem. Prose is different, but not in a poem.

Dan

Dan, our current President has written a book about his experiences entitled The Audacity of Hope.


Les

A trip down memory lane retrieved this bit, some of which was never true, some of which is still true, some of which I can't tell anymore if it is true, and some of which, it doesn't matter if its is true, I like how it sounds and thought I'd share this comment on someone else posting a lot from the first week I was posting, Iridescent1, thewolfpoet,Tom, etc.

Re: global break down [frosty]
Posted by: peternsz (---.client.comcast.net)
Date: July 19, 2021 09:31PM

Since I'm new at using the net, and this is the first forum I've every taken part in, being my obsessive self, as anyone who reads my posted comments can testify, I did a little statistic on the number of posting, and who done 'em recently and found out that in six days, eight poets (48 slots) posted forty-four poems, three posted seven or more that in six day stretch, four submitted four or more, including enthusiastic frosty.

Although I am a "newby," --ugly neologism-- have not having experience with this, I think I'll risk stepping out of line by not staying in my place, or, as master Dylan said almost forty years ago,-- "To live outside the law, you must be honest"--by paraphrasing the Immortal Bandito in Sierra Madre, "We don't need no stinking rules, gringo."--meaning our mutual respect will even out excesses long before the law can ride in, keeping us in order. [ What a convoluted sentence; no wonder I've lost some of the readers in this symposium.]

My own "solution" to the need to post every fifteen minutes is to read every new posting, every entry I've commented on, every posting I've submitted, all the postings without more than five responses, all the postings by people who have responded to my poems and my discussion entries, everything by people whose work I like (many), then the reponses to any poems I hate, before I post another poem. My statistical survey of activity on the site also told me what I needed to know about the average frequency of submission during my first six days here, one per day by those of those who have actually submitted poems for others to consider. Finally, I only submitted stuff, recent and ancient, that I hope poetry savvy readers might critique to teach me about poetry from, otherwise I'd be wasting you guys's attention. Since I've written about 15, 000 pieces or poems since 1963 (forty years ago), and most of that is just stuff that would waste anyone's critical efforts.

All this means I have been able to post four poems in six days, and, by talking to poets every day, I only get totally exhausted and totally satiated once or twice a day, otherwise I would endanger my potency by all this. For the censorally scitzy among, that is a use of that little Anglo-Saxon devil that the Supreme Court of these United States ruled constitutional, and so it is not subject to legal censorship. I have this much energy to spare, because I am six foot nine, independently wealthy, and take eight to ten drugs every day. I include a photo for skeptics.

I do not believe we need to be law abiding, as long as we are respectful of ourselves and each other. After all, frosty did show a measure of concern about posting too much. Be well.

Peter

Attachments: Anon Photo from Focus.jpg (305.8K John's photo of Peter.jpg (198.1K Highway 61 Revisited -Ffront.jpg (225.3K [see original for [photo attachments]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2022 08:02PM by petersz.