The Undeniable Champion Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When our America is down,
Pissing blood in the bushes, and looking
At the asymmetrical pearls of teeth,
Like serpents eggs in the grass....

Ribs bruised and bluish from the new
Pugilist, in the heavyweight fight of
Emerging super-power....,
Wanting to keep his title,
But knowing just how then
It was all but over;

Trying to recount which round
He had lost his butterfly;
when his lung was punctured,
Filled with fluid

For his sword and shield
And fighter jets have been blown up,
And thrown into the deepest parts of the swimming pool;

What will the rest of the world have to say then?
As the novel king arises, grinning the new machinery-
The savage red twists of the eastern factories:
The completed censorships,
The origami war machine marching like an atomic glee club,

The blitzkrieging waves of the neo luftwaffe,
And the unending sirens of European mayhem;
How will the old queen cry out to her disinherited knight then:
The veteran contender, whose colors faded but never bent,

And will he be able to stand one last time,
Before the arising monsters of the final dénouement;
Will he be able to stem the tide of the utter Ragnarok,
Or be devoured by the conclusive assault,
Condemned to a cenotaph buried by the sand;

The Statue of Liberty’s flame a roost for gulls.

Certainly,
He will rise at the occasion
And fight with all the colors of men he knows
Within him, until his legs are knocked from beneath him,
Or he wins the victory of an undeniable champion.