Quote and more Boxing

I am continuing with my boxing poems again this week. These poems and a few others will be part of a collage that i am putting together.
Thanks for the comment last week. Always good to hear from people.


There is no excellent beauty that hath not strangeness in the proportion. From Hermitage Journal Blog




The Sweet Science

On the ropes is where
You find him trying
To fend blows and jostle
An opening with his head.
The bell now more important
Than the round. The bikinied
Girl carrying the numbered sign
Had blurred by the fifth.

On the ropes is where
He was trained
To avoid, and no rope-a-dope
In his repertoire.

Move, move, the corner
Shouts, his legs wobble
Like the recipient of
A first kiss of a lover
Except for the blows.

His ring expectations
Have never been so narrowed-
Ali standing over Liston.
His vision now vertical, not
In the stance of a champ.

Quote: Edgar Lee Masters Poem: Tom Delmore

Edgar Lee Masters said, "How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?"

Pugilist at the Transit Center

He has a face like a boxer
But I could not say he boxed.
Chiseled and boney where blows
Would blossom red. The ears
Have yet to attain vegetable shapes.
Maybe a peek-a-boo puncher-
Floyd Patterson; except white.
A welter weight- quick
Guessing here, since he’s just standing.

When he moves his butt
Over thighs and calves
Not anticipating a blow-
But quick to be in motion, a leg
To lunge. My words
Activating this languorous lad
As I spar in the distance.

Quote Ferlinghetti Poem Tom Delmore

Ferlinghetti said, "Like a bowl of roses, a poem should not have to be explained."









Edward Curtis

When you died
The box camera
Would not fit in
Your casket.
Certain that your dreams
Could be held in
Sepia toned photogravures.
Just one more wax cylinder
For heralding angels was a silent
Plea.

Among Nez Perce you
Caught shadows on glass
And dressed warriors
Out of time. So much apparatus
Your troupe
Outnumbered the tribe.

In debt you photographed
Jewels embedded in eyes
That no one could purchase,
Just a people a language a time
Fading away.

When they buried you
A shelf should have been laid
Round your body
Formed of your exposed
transparencies.

Quote:John Hollander Poem: Tom Delmore

John Hollander said, "I want my poems to be wiser than I am, to know more about themselves than I do."


You’re the Weeds

It was a frustrated phrase
The end of the line.
A step not to take. It came
After much agitation,
Like plastic covering furniture.

When mom went speechless
She fumbled the ledge
For the beating stick. One half
That was aggressive
Was not as strong as the half
That wanted to leave it be.


She would become a Martha Graham dancer
With a prop. Flying around the dining room
To pantry, and kitchen, my twin
And I knowing she could only catch one
Or get tired and give up.

I look at my aging face
A scar below my left eye.
Is that a consequence of escape
Or choreography?