What Sonny Liston Taught Me Poem by r james sterzinger

what force mitigates these changes
what Vesuvian energy burns
the year's days away then
snips away the threads
of this man's life?

another year runs short
another year questioned
I ask the bigger questions
while all the while living the life
of a less than careful, less than
exact man.

what I wouldn't give
to live an unexamined life
to be like the horde
rolling toward a chaos
that completes this length of days,

I was once young
I now carry my swagger in this tired beaten
boxer's body that looks like it's
been knocked out one too
many times.

the test of life
is not what you are willing to gain
it's what you are willing to lose.