Alchemisland

Theagenes of Thassos how I take the face off

For clicks I scuffle at the face off

Backroom it’s all hand shakes like bake off, fake all so fuck off

I’ve been training in the mountains, Dagestani regime

I’m learning shadow kicks from cave Djinn, typa kicks’ll cave heads in

Half the audience my brethren, rest are here against but breads in

No less than presidents in attendance, my road’s residents

Here representing, resplendent

At the checkpoint I take off my pendant, pirate from Penzance

How I’m taking everything he worked for

I take my stance, I contractually hold up the Monster can

Every hater just a waiting fan, all I can hear is flat static ceiling fan

Ten hour version on Youtube 

At the whistle launch a Cuban missile ignites a crisis

My arms are nuclear devices, swing ‘em Godzilla rises

Raise my arms like solar orisons,

Swing through target, hit horizon

At my pressure he melts like ice cream, just like the presser

Ribbed him and a ripple from the audience, raspberry ripple

How red streaks cross his pale head, wears a grimace

Grits his teeth and gets through it, punches that slew

When I was fighting guys 0-2 aren’t doing what I thought they’d do

After fists flew with strength few could contend his face blended, stood tested but unbended

The first round has ended, my game plan upended

We had aimed to end it in the first sentence, tended

By coach and corner, they say the work is splendid

I am doing what we drilled but not what I intended

Miracles with the enswell, he comes out barely dented

All’s well that ends well, Life of Boswell how I visit Scotland and throttle Scotsmen

He strikes with his chin high, like a Paul Craig

I raid with my reaving jab, seeming only to tap

Before I slap them with a jaw snapper, turtle that

Esio Trot how he’s got it backwards, he’s going backwards

He can strike off the backfoot, stave off attackers

He backs up, his backs up to the wall like Cops found the packs

No PAX in the arena, house of the battle axe and spattered sand

He backs up everything but shit talk, he’s not walking out of here

In so much pain and for so long he’ll be addicted to the gear

Two year to the treatment program, another year until the all clear

Worried for his near and dear but paper’s got me feeling mean

My mind is clear like read Dianetics

He moves a lot like a peripatetic

He’s here and there, got jelly legs

When I find his head.

---

Three weeks ago I was near broke

A joke to myself

Toked myself into an anxious mess

Then went out on the beer

A mysterious stranger approached me

He eyed me reprovingly, his eyes always moving like the tombs of the still-moving

I steeled his glances as I would blows, spurred his advances until the good bloke

Bought me good whiskey and toasted with me. When he spoke

He spoke to me only, the other sounds zoned out

I was stoned and was fixed to his mouth 

Now he said come around and we sidesat, he prattling and I rapt

He unbuttoned me, I kept unbottling botleens whilst unboxing my deeds

Wrapped in his spell, I was pliant to his pleas

In fact, at his terms it was I pleading 

Now I plead only for my release

He is given a lease on my soul

He will say no more than that, though grants my wishes whole

Within the week my coach Joe takes a phone call, it’s the other Joe

Wondering about a bout in Scotland, one of his scouts

Watched me training and within the hour the fight was counted

As done, I would receive for that contest a sum

Impossible the previous week, a sum I found hard to believe

Though the zeroes did not number three, save after the period

This period was one of rapid development, my skills literally hellsent

A rage I had always pent up, a preternatural aggression sent 

Out like a salvo of stinger rockets, leave my sparring partners

Bent over spit buckets, or sent over ropes like tarot card

Hangedmen, banged men twice my size 

Know that doesn’t sound right

To some sounds nice

But I mean the straight right

My judge and jury, my knuckled assizes

My struggle deciders, my muggle diviners

Glow blue when you ride in

Call me your highness how I’m princess riding

Smoking chinaman’s nightcap, dishing out violence

Always not guilty when the trial ends

I have an invisible diadem forged by the Devil

Neville Longbottom how I got no parents

Smoking Longbottom Leaf and Old Toby melts my grief

Level of clarity, sharp as a lariat

Parity with prodigies and pharaohs 

Lancet of my art he wrote Martello Towered

Kull how I conquer, cull, conk you, conked out I concur

Conchubar Mac Nessa how I’m a warrior poet and make a mess of you

Stay out my business, drugs better hidden than monsters in Loch Ness

Sláine how I bed Nest, Zarjaz in my Big Meg

Alan Moore Zenith I ain’t reached it yet

Springbird how I bed nest

Pull of the dark drags me like an anchor 

Training camp I’m like an anchorite

No sex, no booze, just prize and eye

Scottish opponent tweets at me at a pic of his belt

Pry that from my cold dead hands, aye

Prune him like a bonsai, bond’s eye view of life it’s fast cars and faster guile

When it cuts away to my life it’s always jealousy-inducing meanwhiles

I see your meme style’s like your fighting style, infantile and absolutely shite

Doesn’t sound great so I don’t hit send

Thinking of a comeback drives me round the bend

Eventually I just tell him I’ll fuck his ma and caress unfriend

You can’t unsend but I wrote da when I meant ma

Up the ra more like up with the lark at the crack

Of dawn lacking sleep I constantly yawn

Curtains drawn I look out on my can-strewn lawn

Homeless lads where gnomes should be, vape shops where homes should be

Mould spots where I keep groceries, grosser things where I keep hosiery

My goal and the devil keep hold of me, it’s the throne I can see, in my ascendancy

I just need to throw enough, knock him clear, no gaudy scar, remember that Junior Cert year?

I’m sparring with a giant from Tyrone, I easily deflect his blows and send him home

Richer a few bruises, I never abuse my devilpower to as not to arouse suspicions in Rome

Where all roads lead, well all men bleed and I intend to extravasate enough to feed

A vampire legion if need be, indeed enough to sate a tiger’s greed

Tiger in the green how I move unseen, saw them filming Martin Sheen

Poxy lip ow after failed to slip blow, land clean.

---

Drugs I take don’t dull my skill, I dumpsend skulls

Stiglike like an angered pantroglodyte, not above throwing shite

If you look at my bars and don’t think twice

Curried favour got a lovely deal

Deed done out on a papyrus with a thick wax seal, explains my zeal.

---

No love lost between us, gloves off at the press conference

No gloves, we bare knuckle box until you leave with a messed countenance

Counting out my winnings, the prizefighter’s prize while frozen peas unswell his eyes.

---

Seconds left to land the right straight

Coach says I won five of eight

But can’t trust judges, mate

Full ten slate for the home plate

Boy, so check his chin

Won’t be home late

Bell rings and I’m in

Last King not Amin

Opponent from Scotland

Has his arm in

His chin armoured

I follow him as if enamoured

Feel enamel fill my gumshield

Hammered by a fistic blitz

Would hit whizzer, this ain’t jitz

Inches from landing, cinches in barely

Clinch break clean fairly squarely

A right straight light in context lands cleanly, he reacts queerly

New deer way he rears back 

Way I go forward like no steering wheel

Driving into him, punches wheel past his guard sending him reeling

Ag troid, his face hid behind his mitts

I rip his midsection, drawing a grimace

Seems I can’t miss, until I trip and he springs like a trap

Like a rat dodged the trap snap and grabbed the gouda

Beats me like only a da could, shouldda

Blocked but his box knocks me for six

Hits me in the breadbasket, shakes like a buddha 

Feels like I’m going to be sick

He’s continually tagging me, close to body bagging me

Arms are sagging from lactic acid, I lacked kicks and he didn’t

I throw a backfist that lands all wrist, twist back around his hands on me like frisking

Throw punches from the hip, twist like I’m throwing a discus

Style goofy like Dricus, he decks my solar plexus disgustingly

End of discussion that last left gave concussion 

He marches forward military, cruel as a Prussian

But I’m the Russian winter, start pushing him back, rushing forward

Attack attack attack, backfoot him and find him like bigfoot, toward 

The final stanza’s final stanza I take my best stance and lead the dance

Landing hands like Han Solo landing the Falcon, Charles Dance how he grasps

His stomach, I’m the dwarf son come up, his corner rasps

Out useless instructions, he’s all instinct and vital functions

I function best in dogfight ructions, the crowd is erupting, my fists like cop truncheons

Cracking heads at a resistance luncheon, dot his forehead like an unction

Welts swell up after I punch him, stumbles forward hands out punch drunk

I arc and it lands with a truck crash thunk

My knuckles junked, his knees buckled, he sunk

To his knees and referee jumped

In to save him further misery, I jump

Onto the ropes with hands held aloft, pump

Out my arms and they shout back the crowd like my army

In the backroom, done the press now it’s enswell and depression

Taught a lesson but learnt one too, rifle my pocket for fags

One after the fight is all I allow myself, with all the punches my life lags

Tamám Shud how I forget who I am, check my coat tags

Full contact I fulfil my devil’s contract

My soul to be an unbeaten cataphract.