Prizefight

“Prize Fight” by Albert Bloch

 

ego strides right on in
all Dan Post ostrich skin
tree-trunk legs and cleft chin

packing serious heat
hands rough as concrete
it yanks fate to its feet

now fate is no mark
it’s developed the dark
deadly skills of a shark

so fate doesn’t flinch
doesn’t back off an inch
and they clash in grim clinch

rain down mighty hard blows
toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose
fury builds as blood flows

after vicious long hours
fatigue overpowers
these broken-down towers

nodding cagey assent
they retreat this event
bearing deep discontent

I’m the one left to tend
them and see to their mend
though neither’s my friend

still I’ll wait for the rise
of new fight in their eyes
to learn who claims me prize

 

 

(originally posted March 2013)

Primus

“Decorative Graveyard” by Christopher Stead

 

grabbing mendicants by their humility
you fling them insouciant like ragdolls aside
smacking down the least threatening talent
that so much as lifts up a competent hand
your swaggering insensate skin undeterred
clears a fat assed man’s path for your greatness
to wrangle the rainbows and sunbeams
in sheaves of light holstered alongside
your chariot glowing like warrior’s fasces
enarmed with your monogramed blades

swelled pride for your bootstraps and ladder rung toes
leaves no space in your heartscape for mercy or care
loveless journeys enable your conquering ways
and your raising up castles of unpeopled gloom
in each land where you crowned yourself king
but unable to see either people who hate
or dismiss you as tinhorn nonentity
you never quite realize that no other people exist
or that you will leave only one mark on the world
the unadorned print of your much pissed on grave

Algonquin Round Table

Postcard of the Algonquin Round Table
Drawing by Al Hirschfeld

vicious circle of middling talents
acid dripped from their tongues
etching outlines of fame in the
smoke and the sarcasm heady
with beaux-arts grandiloquence

lesser these lights of the jazz age
amusing themselves in salute
of a culture in post-war delirium
deaf to the sound of the barreling
train headed hard into wall street

Antagony

“Alter Ego”
Painting by Luis Duro
From ego-alterego.com

the world next door
behind my brain
mirror images
shimmer the
cranial ether
filling the space
in between us
the distance
dividing me here
from me there
one or both
of us real each
compelled by a
skeptic’s mistrust
turns away from
the other looking
off in opposing
directions of dreams
same but different
shared memories
spiked with conflicting
emotions one mind
with dissimilar
thoughts hiding
hard painful lines
metaphysical edges
the dual jagged blades
of antagony under
a single thin smile

High and Mighty

“Surrealist Man” Painting by Cristiano Siqueira From deviantart.com

he used to hang from the moon
stuff stars in his pockets
chase night from the face of the earth
hurl lightning bolts back to the cosmos

men clamored for his bold imprimatur
angels sat on his shoulders
together they gave righteous escort
protecting the driven and noble

he had powers electric invincible
wielded success like a truncheon
to instigate oomph in the abjectly timid
the dullards unblessed by ambition

then came cold reversal of fortune
disabling his ego with frissons of fear
felled by silence that amputates glory
prosthetic humility simply won’t fit

nothing sadder more tragic
than losing great pieces of self
nothing gladder more suiting
than hubris when brought to its knees

Menu for the Starved

“Francois I and La Belle Ferronier”
Painting by Alexandre Menjaud
From europeanpaintings.com

lover and egoist
seeming in complement
one needs to feed
one wants only to be fed
till the feeder dies hungry

Prizefight

“Heenan vs. Sayers 1860”
Drawing by Thomas Nast

ego strides right on in

all Dan Post ostrich skin

tree-trunk legs and cleft chin

packing serious heat

hands rough as concrete

it yanks fate to its feet

now fate is no mark

it’s developed the dark

deadly skills of a shark

so fate doesn’t flinch

doesn’t back off an inch

and they clash in grim clinch

rain down mighty hard blows

toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose

fury builds as blood flows

after vicious long hours

fatigue overpowers

these broken-down towers

nodding cagey assent

they retreat this event

bearing deep discontent

I’m the one left to tend

them and see to their mend

though neither’s my friend

still I’ll wait for the rise

of new fight in their eyes

to learn who claims me prize