Poems about boxers

"Who'll Fight Sam Langford"
(A Pugilistic Nursery Rhyme)

I.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said Stanley K.,
Britt has taken me away
And I'm signed to do a play.
Then I'm going to the hay.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

II.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said Jack the Twin.
I am careful of my chin
And I'm pretty near all in,
And suicides' a sin.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

III.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, is Papke's wail,
I'm a lily white and pale
And my life is not for sale;
Why I'd sooner got to jail.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

IV.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said Kid McCoy;
I'm a pretty game old boy,
But this unrefined employ
I will leave for hoi polloi.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

V.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said poor old Fitz.
Though I'd fight for just six bits,
Still I haven't lost my wits;
I'd preserve my speckled mitts.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

VI.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said Hugo Kelly.
He would pound me to a jelly
And I'd lose some vermicelli.
Not for me. What ta helli?
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

VII.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, said Joe da Grim.
I no like to fight with him
Cause he shutta up my glim
And da chances are too slim
I'll notta fight Sam Langford.

VIII.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not I, Al Kaufman said.
You are crazy in the head.
Chase yourself and go to bed.
I ain't anxious to be dead.
I'll not fight Sam Langford.

IX.
Who'll fight Sam Langford?
Not us. The low brows cried.
And they turned around to hide.
Nix: the color line is wide,
And we're going to stay inside.
We'll not fight Sam Langford.

 

Find the rage
and summons the hate.
No words need be spoken,
with our fists we'll settle the debate.

I have no hate for you...
yet the weak will never win.

Run faster, punch harder
find the greatness. It is there, it's always been.
He is weak, punch him harder.
WIN, WIN, WIN!

-The Fighter-

 

Actually, I think it might get fair traffic, there’s already been a few quality replies.

I really like the premise.

A poem about a boxer, if you will: -

Ali: Me, we.

George Plimpton suggested that it might’ve qualified as the world’s shortest poem.

 

They called me Money May,
For I could generate a million bucks a day.
What people don't understand,
I'm the one who is in command.

They want me to suffer loss,
But in the end, I'm still the boss.
They want me to humiliate me,
Yet, they can't find the right key.

I am Floyd Mayweather Jr,
I am the face of Boxing and the future...
Anyone who tries to fight with me,
He'll first have to drink my pee.

 

This is a poem that's not about a boxer, but was written by one. (David Tua). Tua wrote this for a children's cardiology ward at a hospital in Auckland, a couple of months before his November 11th fight with Lennox Lewis:

As the river meets the sea,
So the darkness overwhelms by the morning breaks,
Reminiscence becomes vital,
when beauty breaks my silence.

The river - David Tua
The sea - all the children in need of love and care
The darkness - the current struggles of the children
By the morning breaks - The light from David Tua and the children's carers
Reminiscence - to remember the too tough (Tua tough) times
Beauty breaks my silence - Seeing the faces of those fighting a greater fight than David Tua's match against Lennox Lewis.

 

The epitaph written after the demise Dan Donnelly, an Irish heavyweight with a thirst for strong waters that led to his early demise...


"Underneath this pillar high
Lies Sir Daniel Donnelly.
He was a stout and handy man
And people called him Buffing Dan;
Knighthood he took from George's sword,
And well he wore it, by my word!
He died at last, from forty-seven
Tumblers of punch he drank one even;
O'erthrown by punch, unharmed by fist,
He died unbeaten pugilist!
Such a buffer as Donnelly
Ireland again will never see."

 

A haiku for the occasion......

Modern boxing is
Clumsy waste tattooed nonsense
I hate it so much

 

Ya'll are like HBO fighters, get the money and fame.
Get beat up like Klitschko and Sugar Shane.
Or beat like Vernon Forrrest or Prince Naseem.
Yeah, you all turn ***** once you get that green.

--RA The Rugged Man

 

Far out in the wilds of Oregon
On a lonely mountain side
Where Columbia’s mighty waters
Fell down to the ocean’s tide,
Where the giant fir and cedar
Are imaged in the wave
O’ergrown with weeds and lichens,
I found Jack Dempsey’s grave.

I found no marble monolith,
No broken shaft or stone
To tell of the great triumphs
This vanished hero won;
No rose, no shamrock I could find,
No mortals here to tell,
How sleeps in this forsaken spot
The immortal Nonpareil.

 

I just wrote this right now. I call it, "The Ballad of Muhammad Ali."

There once was a fighter
Named Muhammad Ali,
Who said,
"Float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee!"

With a lightning fast right
And a jab like a piston,
He beat Foreman, and Frazier
And Norton, and Liston

The man he couldn't beat
Could not be found,
But his own fight for justice
Knocked him down

In his fight for civil rights
They did him wrong,
When he said,
"I ain't got no quarrel with no Viet Congs."

The title that no man
Could take before,
Was unfairly stripped
'Cause of the Viet Nam War

For four years he languished
While lesser men fought,
And when he came back
It seemed all for naught

Cause age seemed to catch up
And threatened erasure,
When he lost to a great
Little plug named Frazier

And Ken Norton, too
Broke his jaw and beat him,
And a lesser man would have
Let it all defeat him

But Frazier, and Norton
Though they were the latest,
Gave him he rematch
And both lost to The Greatest!

And though nobody gave him
A chance in Zaire,
Seventy four
Was a legendary year

Because though Big George Foreman
Was a wrecking ball,
A man like Ali
He had not fought yet at all

"Ali bombaye!"
The crowed, they all chanted,
And their dreams of Ali's
Redemption were granted

For there in Zaire
For all the oppressed and their hopes,
His second title came
By way of rope-a-dope

And the United States
Who had not loved him before,
Could no longer deny him
Or what he stood for

And though time has passed
And from us he's taken,
He's changed the world
And the country we live in!

 

I love this! Very well done.

 

Thanks!

 

I have to admit that guy looks identical to Flowers.

If we are doing haiku
It is something I literally do not
Understand
Umbrella?