12 About Boxing

I wrote these because my favourite boxer, Miguel Cotto, is having his final fight. It's also, and more appropriately, in my sport blog, but I've put it here too.

1 - ONE SECOND

One second, clear and cautious, a machine of war unstinting,

I recharge my eyes uncornered, of one chain with fists unflinching,

Picking spaces, prizing windows, opening wounds with dread precision,

I’m a knife and I’m a cudgel, I am living every second

And the referee is weighing what’s humane and what is brutal,

I’m the truth this sucker paid for, I’m his point of last refusal,

He can smell my fierce indifference to his pain’s humiliation,

There will be a new world champion, any second, any second …

One second, a contender, just outworking, never thinking

Of the next fight, just reworking combinations neverending,

Never cornered, always stabbing, never pounding, sword and scalpel,

Neat and frightening, treading closer with each second,

And one second of three minutes of twelve rounds of one life’s vigil

I’m the boy with no defences who needs something to take pride in

I’m the first parade of power to incredulous oppressors,

And the first flash of bravado in the haze of adulation

This one second, the next second, I am glancing as I’m thinking

That the referee needs to step in, I’m forgetting this man’s record

For recovering from a beating, I’m not looking as its right hand

Takes a long last flight, takes one second…

2 - TAKING A KNEE

The night Miguel retreated, sunk down to his knee,

His face a sorry shocked defeat of bloodied shame

He lost his prime belief – his own invincibility -

A truthless game of swollen tongues and stolen belts

Is not for heroes; pride and preening manliness

Fail the eyes – the eyes will see just what they need,

They’ll dwell on foul false idols, flaunting warrior deceits.

Pa’lante, Miguel Cotto, for the final time, pa’lante,

There were no better men than you

At this blighted playground con

We’re wrong to love and wrong to judge.

Pa’lante, Miguel Cotto, you’re free to go,

A better man than every man who beat you.

Miguel Cotto took a knee to reconfigure dignity,

An unwitting protest against the way

Brute force lost all humanity.

3 - THE NOBLE ART

Boxing’s faux nobility, a myth to mask its savagery,

Is a potent painful allegory for the plague of masculinity.

Hidden behind “consent”, a plethora of ethics bent

Fix the path of its contestants to unwitting acquiescence.

Some boxers’ post-fight hugs conceal the panoply of drugs

They’d employ to further maim a man who doesn’t know the game.

To some, there is no limit nor a hint of a misgiving

to the extent they’ll kill their spirit to make a mockery of living.

4 - A MINUTE

Now I’ve got a minute, ok I’ve got a minute

Which is where is

They’re waving at me, now I’ve got a minute

I’m a winner, what’s the noise, sixty seconds is a minute,

It’s not long, I am seeing red, I’m a tomato can, I’m a champion,

I’ve a minute, I’ve a minute, 40 seconds,

Bring the water, bring the salts,

Who is this guy, fuck my head hurts, fuck my legs aren’t my legs,

They are strong legs, I’ve strong legs, I’m the winner,

I’ve one minute,

What round is this? Who is this guy?

What’s his record? Should I beat him?

Should I quit now? I’m a winner, 30 seconds,

Should I be sick, fuck that stings, man,

I can see him, he looks tired, I feel finished, he looks tired,

It’s a minute, now I’m breathing, now I’m breathing,

I’ve felt worse and I can do this, 20 seconds,

Legs aren’t ready but the head is,

I got caught hard but I’ve felt worse,

I’m a winner, he looks tired, 13 seconds, I’ll be ready.

Am I ready? Should I quit now? Can I still punch?

Just eight seconds of the minute … can I stand up?

I can stand up. I’m not quitting.

I can see straight. I can think straight. I can punch hard.

No more seconds. I don’t need them. I’m the winner.

5 - ON THE CARDS

There	are	36
boxes	which	tell
a	different	story
to	the	one
your	eyes	encountered.
There's	a	9
you	can't	believe
and	a	10
with	no	defence
It's	the	story
of	the	business
in	36	boxes.

6 – THE CUTMAN

The cutman loves

Each fighter he rescues

From bloody disaster

The fighter loves

The cutman for all the

Pain his touch delivers

In the furnace

His tender, steady hand

Earns its share of the purse

A swab, a towel,

An endswell and jelly -

The tools of a master.

7 - ALL OF A SUDDEN

All of a sudden

You’re oh so much stronger

You’re thudding your gloves through my splintering guard

Twelve months ago

I old-manned you in sparring

Now I can’t stand the power you’ve so rapidly learnt

I know that they’re saying

I’ve aged overnight

But both of us know how you’re hitting so hard.

I won’t say a thing

Which could pause my last paycheck

But I hope you count carefully what you haven’t earnt.

8 - TRILOGY

The seventy-two minutes I have spent

In proximity to this stinking beast

Will feed my children till they’re old enough

For me to’ve washed off the filth of the game.

Just thirty-six more and we’re set for life,

Or one, if he starts slow and I luck out,

If I can sneak round his low-slung left hand,

And spare us both passage into the swamp.

He gets in my face like he means it, God,

Some pricks are really born to the business.

How did I let him beat me the first time?

Don’t answer that. I know. That’s the problem.

And he’ll hug me and bang on about respect,

And they’ll chunter about the warrior code.

And I’ll shower every hour till I forget

What I’ve done for the money and against whom.

Tomorrow I’ll smell his sweat for the last time.

The day after that I can redefine

My existence as distinct from this contest

Of his mindless will against my foolish pride.

9 - FIGHT NIGHT

Twelve fights on the night, seven or eight televised –

Bristling big-time heads bending

 to be singled out in the front rows.

Back stories, rivalries, mixed minor celebrities

Toughening up for winter, unsure

 of the pros and their protocol.

It’ll kick off. Everyone knows it’ll kick off.

Heads will be turned and seats will be ripped out,

One of the fighters will briefly be lost

To the job of a lifetime,

A wrong step away from feeling it all.

There’ll be family men in feral Fred Perrys

Free with the fever to participate,

Decrepit judges with unique perspective

Primed that they’ll need to make a quick exit,

Shuddering wives reconsidering their lives

Begging for the paradox of cowardice.

There’ll be big men in black polos,

Shoving theatrically

To protect the last people who needs protecting.

Of the twelve fights on show, a couple will shine

And the rest will just roll out as expected

Well-paid lambs will dance, then crumble

On cue, no fools, safely tough and short on skills,

Years since they had their last proper rumble.

And the champ … the champ … the one they’re all there for,

With just the right weighting of charm and menace,

Will do his job well, then be humble, so humble

So brutally wise to the science of promotion.

Ten thousand tonight will double in six months,

Small hall then large hall then arena then stadium –

No need to hurry that trip ‘cross the ocean …

The fight game - where anything could happen

And usually doesn’t. No one calls fix.

They all know the script.

10 - BOXING LIVES

I heard about the boxing lives

And how they came to pass

In pride and in violence,

With love and with bloodlust,

a blast of guts and colour.

The last punch came so fast

Sometimes, and sometimes took forever.

Edwin Valero was nobody’s hero,

He stalked and he strutted,

Wild and destructive,

He killed then he died

Unfulfilled, underwritten,

unforgiven.

Smokin’ Joe Frazier went to Manila

And fought close to death with his ugliest foe,

Seconds away from winning the day,

Compassion broke through;

his coach Eddie Futch

turning his champion into a quitter,

judged that Joe had taken too much.

The grudge of the century was settled against him.

Joe died belligerent, belittled and bitter.

Arturo Gatti, fight fan’s fighter,

Purist’s savage, fearless dream,

highlife highlight, bloodbath brother,

Hall of Famer, taming history,

Stand and Trader, Thrill and Thunder,

Million youtube tributes later

Lost to a grim hotel-room mystery.

Benny Kid Paret paid with his life

For a slight that Emile was unable to pardon.

A referee, afraid that he’d start a riot,

Let punch after punch be unfurled and unanswered

And death cast a curse on each man at the Garden.

11- TOUCH GLOVES

Touch gloves with a thud

And a gun in a glance,

Lock eyes without fear

There’s no chance

That you’re here

And I’m not.

Touch gloves, it’s a trap

There are bombs in my fists,

It’s too late to escape,

Through your wrists,

Through the tape

You feel it.

12 – THE BOXERS

The boxers came from everywhere and ended up everywhere.

They came for the sport or the art or the battle.

They embraced you and defied you all at once.

They spat as they kissed then made up then opened old wounds for bigger paydays.

They were family men from the mean streets and the school of hard knocks who defied the clichés.

They studied maths, every second.

They were fragile and fearless.

They loved the attention.

They shrunk and expanded.

They were never what you expected, they were shadows of their former selves.

They were fat men with fast hands or skinny men with hands of stone.

They had to learn the hard way, and they were cowards if they were knocked out and came back.

They were given chance after chance, because they all knew there was no disrepute.

They lied to themselves.

They had levels and limits, nearly every one of them.

They were born and made and that couldn’t be faked.

They had an untransferable set of skills.

They always pretended they hadn’t been hurt when they’d been hurt so that was the biggest giveaway going.

The most ridiculous was the bravest.

The most balletic was the nastiest.

The hardest-living lived the longest, and the most self-destructive took his natural ability the furthest.

So many redemption songs ended in crucifixion.

Some lived with the reality of what they’d done, some didn’t.