Subject: Many Faces, Many Gloves
From: Christopher W. Thomas (creatician@poetic.com)
Host: 207-172-227-111.s48.as1.dnb.erols.com
Date: Mon Jan 4, 1999 at 9:00AM

On this day in nineteen hundred and thirty five

One of the boxing world's greats first came alive
It was the birth of Floyd Patterson, who lives near
And used to practice and spar back in the years

Before the world saw the rise of boxing's new star
A man who started in Louisville, and then came far
The man who would reign for almost twenty years
Who fought them all, and never, ever shed a tear ...

Including Jerry Quarry - twice, in seventy and seventy-two
A boxer who sparred with them all ... and won a few, too
And just today, succumbed to illness gained from the game
Making many of us who enjoyed ... hang our heads in shame

For Patterson, Ali, Frazier, Liston, Cooper, Quarry and London
All put on such great shows we watched avidly and with abandon
Throughout the sixties and seventies as promoters got their hands in
To make the largest winning purses the world has ever, ever seen

And now we look back and wonder whether it was all really worth it
For Quarry has just died, and so many others now crippled and unfit ...
Including "The Greatest" ... Muhammed Ali ... the man who just toppled
All of the boxing world's best ... including Patterson in sixty-five, hobbled ...

At the end of a twelve-rounder fought in Las Vegas ... the gambler's paradise
On the second anniversary of the assassination ... a very intriguing guise ...
And now this day comes - a birthday celebration of one, the death of another
Amidst certain pangs of reservation about the game of boxing, and its cover

- Tristram

© Christopher W. Thomas
8:47am Monday, Jan. 4th, 1999