The Pugilist

A pugilist, for those unfamiliar, is properly a bare-knuckle brawler, but has come to refer to any fighter. This poem does in fact refer to the early connotation, thinking of the famous pugilists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, men such as the Game Chicken. The fights would go until someone could no longer rise, something roughly akin to MMA fights today, but with less enforcement of rules and no influence from any martial arts.

Still on his feet but breathing hard,

The pugilist inspects the cracked and split

Skin that scarcely thirty minutes past

Had covered his knuckles. Spitting,

He smiles, relishing the sting that tells him

His blows connected, contained force.

He half laughs, the jab from his ribs

Reminding him he will soon cough blood,

Thick gobs in a white handkerchief,

Roses of violence wrapped in a shroud of decency;

But now the bell dings, cut lids coming to focus

On the foe whose rise mirrors his own;

He smiles, relishing the return to battle,

Wading in till the fight is won.