B.V. Olguin’s “Ode to Muhammed Ali” from Red Leather Gloves

We wanted to share B.V. Olguin’s poem “Ode to Ali” in memory of The Champ, Muhammed Ali (1942-2016).

ODE TO ALI*

Ain’t no such thing as a boxing poet,
’cept of course Ali. Muhammad Ali.
He could bust a rhyme while keeping time
with shuffling feet and flying fists
that set typewriters clacking
and people clapping
from Kentucky to Kinsasha: Ali Bumbayé!

He was a beautiful man
in a brutal time
when Africans in America
were given nigger for a name.
But this Black Man wouldn’t
Step-n-fetch-it ’cause Ali
didn’t take shit from nobody!

In another skin and another time
he’d be a salon poet reciting rhymes
about the simplicity of the human mind
and miracle of a blade of grass.
His hands would be soft and pink
instead of scarred plump dumbbells
used to tabulate the worth
of a man at auction
on the Las Vegas boxing circuit.
His fists an abacus of anger
clicking and clacking over
and over again: Ain’t Nobody’s Nigga!
NOOOOOOBODY’S NIGGA!

Ali was a sweet man, a sweet man
child who grew up with fists
for toys. But he knew how to share.
He shared all he had
with any who asked
’cause Ali was just like that, generous
as a poet who offers a rhyme
to help us pass the time
after beatings at work, home
and everyplace in between.

Ali knew. He knew
what that was like,
so he gave us a smile
even though it left him open
to a right cross that twisted his face stupid.
But Ali didn’t let a simple beating
beat him. He made a song
of the slapping and whistling wind
from other punches he made miss;
he’d move, mock and rock to help
us smile, too, laugh with him.

He invited us to a dance
in the middle of the ring
and shout at the top of his lungs
I AM THE GREATEST!
THEEE GREAAAATEST!
A gift of gauche from a man
who talked like all our fathers
were afraid to talk except
when they were drunk
or beating a woman.

Ali, Muhammad Ali, the man
was a poet I tell you,
a poet who could bust a rhyme
while keeping time with whistling
combinations, one-two, left-right,
triple left, right, down then up
and down again for the next measure;
Ali was a conductor who knew
how to use his hands to make music.

He could command trumpets
and bassoons to call for war,
set the violin section running
like a cavalry with swords
drawn, he’d command the trombones
and tubas to honor the fallen,
call flutes, clarinets and cymbals
to ring like a poem: MUSIC!
And he could sing, too.

Today, Ali can barely speak in splatters
and slurs because in those days
everyone wanted to be famous for
an hour so they skipped, smacked
and cracked the bones of his face
and forehead, sent his brain
bubbling back and forth
in a pool of burst blood vessels.

Angry, they were angry
because they knew
they were just fighters
not poets like Ali.
They hated him,
despised the butterflies and
bees he set loose
because everybody knows
there ain’t no such thing
as a goddamned boxing poet,

’cept of course Ali,
Muhammad Ali,
a warrior who knew
how to sing a song
with slips and slaps
of the padded batons
that sent the crowd dancing
in their seats like amateurs
do before their first fight.

And he fought
by refusing to fight
what wasn’t right:
No Viet Cong ever called me nigger
This war’s wrong!
he said in a song.
Only Ali could rant and rhyme
at the same time. He gave us this
because he knew we could not
go on without.
He took a beating for it,
our beating.

He took beatings because
we asked him to sing for us,
to dance one more time
even after his voice went hoarse
and body bent and bloated
with age and other men’s rage.
He took beatings, too many
beatings, to mark time
when he could no longer sing
his songs because he knew
we needed him
to explain the beauty
of our blackness
and all the colors of the rainbow.
We needed his music, his
manhood. Muhammad Ali.
Yes, Muhammad Ali, he
was a poet…

© 2014 B.V. Olguín. All rights reserved. “Ode to Ali” is poem from the awarding winning poetry book, Red Leather Gloves (Hansen Publishing Group).

B.V. Olguín was born and raised in the working class barrio in the lower east side of Houston, Texas known as Magnolia. He was an undefeated amateur boxer (14-0, 2 KO). He received a B.A. from the University of Houston in 1989, where his maternal grandfather worked as a janitor, and an M.A. (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) from Stanford University. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing in the English Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Olguín is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros and has published in journals such as Borderlands, Callaloo, North American Review, and elsewhere.

RED LEATHER GLOVES takes us from the mean streets of the Houston’s barrios and dockside boxing stables into a dilapidated boxing arena deceptively named the Olympiad where men and boys reenact an ancient rite of passage in desperate pursuit of Olympic fame, title belts, and riches that will elude them all. Olguín writes within the visceral realism of Philip Levine and the boxing authenticity of F. X. Toole: he zeros in on these working class denizens as they train in the art of the not so sweet science of beating bodies into submission. An amateur boxer in his youth, Olguín dissects the sport with the skill of a cut-man, and his poems burst with the pain and physical toll the sport exacts.