Ali

You shook up the world,
And the world shook you back.

There,
You stand, a statue,
In black and white relief,
Shouting at Sonny
—floored/flat-backed/defeated—
Before his lights burnt out.
This defining shot
Wrapped a heavy weight
Around your waist.

With a defiant cross,
You upstaged your ancestry
And championed a new name,
Of a prophet, rightly-guided.

Your fiercest opponent
Dropped bombs from afar,
A war machine without peer.
You took off the gloves
For a fight
You refused to fight
As fights refused you.
This bout went to the scorecard
And the judges raised your arm,
Your title exposed and stripped.

Still undefeated—
You answered the bellow
Of an unbeaten brawler
To reclaim top prize once more.
Under the frenzied lights
Of a sleepless city,
You endured
Your first beating:
A fifteen round suffocation
In Frazier’s smoke.

You fought back,
Leaving home for jungle
And a giant—
A menace unfelled by man.
The natives hailed for blood.
You obliged,
Grilling that Foreman dope
With speed, guile, and ropes—
Your crowning achievement.

Only you,
The Greatest—
Molded from Clay,
Chiseled by faith,
Hardened by dissent—
Could transform
The sweet science
Into poetry.