ODE TO THE AMATEUR BOXER,
from his inexperienced Co-Manager/Hype-Man


My Friend,
Hobby Nomad,
Fellow Fisherman of Salacious Sensationalism-
You have cast your line in deep water,
so I'm in your corner manning the net.
The bets have begun and the word on the street
is that you are the underdog,
a stray boxer just trying to avoid the pound.
They're saying the only rounds you can endure
are being served up at the local bar...
and it's waxing my heart cold, it's taxing me,
because i have glimpsed your tenacity,
your capacious heart gone ballistic in the practice of your spastic jabbing.

Practicality will only mock the unorthodox in us.
We must move in a state of Peripheral Training.
Let your opponent think it potent
that you have never locked mitts with the Pugilists.
We will only insist that you are as undefeated as the common cold!

And when you wake up first thing at the crack of 3PM,
And the thrill of The Challenge lingers like magic at the tips of your fingers,
Let this regiment begin with a yawp! and be guided by the dragon
that beats a ferocious heat beneath your dense forest of a chest.
So that when the Hour arrives,
you will rise like a Great White,
bursting from the ocean of your limitations-
teeth bared, body airborne,
to strike! at the glass chin of the naysayers!
And as they shatter they will see a Champion
made from some strange new material...............
A Sparring Artist
conjured from the blank canvas of the Ring.