A belligerent cockiness bubbles within his blood. He has yet to realize that hell is not other people?it is himself?
Wallace Stevens? poem, ?13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,? challenges readers with thirteen obscure stanzas, or ?snapshots,? of how to look at a blackbird. I?ve suffered through countless readings of his poem, never understanding a damn word.
I may be dense, but Wallace?s poetry is denser, so I?ll leave his perplexing poetry to former Heavyweight Champion Gene Tunney to unravel.
I?ll concentrate on what I do know?prizefighters.
I have been watching, listening to, training, and admiring prizefighters for decades. I fought myself, and I think I understand a fighter better than a blackbird.
When the spotlight shines upon a talented boxer, that spotlight casts a long shadow?and living in that long dim shadow are thousands of unsung pugs struggling to scratch out a meager existence.
So here, I offer forty-three ?snapshots? of a boxer?a man forged by a rugged and raw life?who smooths out his jagged edges well enough to create his own perplexing poetry?a prizefight.
1. He looks into the eyes of his opponent and takes a deep pull of air through his flat nose. It?s the beginning of the fifth round and behind his thick skull, the delicate folds of his young brain are slowly beginning to soften.
2. A belligerent cockiness bubbles within his blood. He has yet to realize that hell is not other people?it is himself.
3. His young brain is paleo-mammalian, and his heart sweats. He taps into the power of his fists and the strength of his dysfunction.
4. He thrives on hostility, brainpain, and belligerence.
5. His knowledge is higher ignorance.
6. His mouth is an insignificant piece on his body. If he tries to say what he feels or thinks, he feels stupid, so he verbalizes with his fists: Boss?Money?Respect?Love?
7. He is almost happy?but not quite.
8. He doesn?t know what he doesn?t know, but he is scathingly intelligent in his own way?and he hits very hard.
9. He trains, drives to the arena, pukes, boxes?He trains, drives to the arena, pukes, boxes?He trains, drives to the arena, pukes, boxes?He trains, drives to the arena?
10. He is still a scared little boy.
11. He has met the enemy?and it is himself. But he doesn?t know that yet.
12. He is defined by what he hates.
13. He deals with his damp fear by ignoring it.
14. He needs an exorcism?and boxing is it.
15. There is a mysterious, potent, beautiful strength within his silence.
16. He is not normal.
17. His fists are his words.
18. His life is a brutal life with many traps.
19. He is tough inside the ring but vulnerable outside it.
20. He is malicious because he is miserable.
21. He is what he hates.
22. He comes from the mud of civilization.
23. He perceives slights, offenses, and insults and then manufactures vendettas.
24. He finds simple spiritual strength from punching a heavybag.
25. He loves a mirror.
26. He is an anachronistic man who creates modern-day beauty.
27. The voice within his boxing gloves whispers, ?This, too, is art.?
28. He stares into the mirror, and locked behind the flat wall of his face is the knowledge that the dark fertile crevices of his brain are, indeed, softening.
29. He is the victim of his own hatred. And love.
30. Dreaming and boxing are the only two places where he can go safely insane.
31. He is a nimble actor performing on a stage where nobody speaks a foolish word.
32. His punch is anger that bursts.
33. Pain produces his endorphins.
34. He is strong, but weak.
35. The kindest thing you can say about his childhood is that he survived it.
36. He would never have punched a single punch unless some minor tragedy had not twisted his soul or soiled his brain.
37. He delivers the most exciting word in sports: KNOCKOUT.
38. His exhilarating victory is his opponent?s humiliating defeat.
39. His tears are hidden inside boxing gloves.
40. Throughout his life, he has battled real, or imaginary, limitations.
41. He is a man?but an unfinished, half-baked man?still waiting to happen.
42. He is an old, scarred, war-horse, still, essentially, vertical, but going bald and missing a few teeth. Boxing has crawled deep inside him?but his belligerent cockiness is long gone.
43. He thinks about retiring, but wants one more fight.
