Excalibur

"There are ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away. They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets. They scream yr name at night in the streets. Yr graduation gown lies in rags at their feet. And in the lonely cool before dawn, you hear their engines roaring on. When you get to the porch they're gone with the wind. Mary climb in..."

Jack Dempsey was the most fascinating fighter I ever heard of. Forever hobo, on the rails to the next town or jungle..

 

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


Jack Dempsey is the Angry Hobo who Could.

 

Ezzard Charles.

Because.

Only One.

 

This content is protected

 

I need to read more. I’ve got the time now I suppose.

 

Spring has sprung
Fall has fell
Summer’s here
And it’s hot as ...
Usual
_______________

Larry Holmes, but sometimes it’s Duran, Joe Louis, Sandy Saddler or someone else.

 

sway with me, everything sad --
madmen in stone houses
without doors,
lepers steaming love and song
frogs trying to figure
the sky;
sway with me, sad things --
fingers split on a forge
old age like breakfast shell
used books, used people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving.

_______________________________________________________

I don't know why it is, exactly, but this Bukowski piece Sway with Me popped into my head, and I thought of Stanley Ketchel, Boxing's mercurial, enigmatic, brutish savant. What a brilliant thread.

 

Bukowski is good ****. Big influence on me.

 

In 18 hundred and forty one ..my corduroy britches I did put on !.

Duran

 

God.... 13 years ago on this forum seems both like yesterday and so long ago

 

"Attics Of My Life"

In the attics of my life, full of cloudy dreams unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know, and lights no eye can see
When there was no ear to hear, you sang to me

I have spent my life seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune, and closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play, you played to me

In the book of love's own dream, where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days, and all my lights grow old
When I had no wings to fly, you flew to me, you flew to me

In the secret space of dreams, where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told, and the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine, you dreamed of me.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So many...The big guys. It can vary between the incredible skills of a great boxer, unmatched toughness of a high volume swarmer.

Or a fight that is "The Closest Thing to Death" for which we are all so Grateful...
Riffing on the song above.

 

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

And back to boxing, Little Red Lopez, all time favorite.

 

From Hell's heart I stab at thee, for hates sake I spit my last breath at thee...….

Roberto Duran

 

great quote !!!! Loved peck in Moby dick !!!......you should not have come back here whale....stubbs

 

I know it's probably not, but this sounds like Revalations.