Lucky

Luck doesn't just happen.

It bakes. Time is the oven.

Like that? ^^

Fuckinay.

You're lucky to know me. 

You could have been hit by an SUV

and ended up in the hands of a quack hiding from the Anti-Defamation League.

Geez, would you look at the weird shit in jars on his shelf

(If he existed.

If that driver hadn't swerved.) 

Luck is the residue of design

like jam on a knife

at the breakfast table of infinity.

Whoa, nice, right? ^^

You were lucky when you ran out of here

carrying all that shit.

Lucky traffic was light.

Lucky the sun was up.

Lucky you got me to sign my (brilliant, fantastic) book

before you ran out of here like a chicken from the skillet,

jabbering about luck

and some other unkind hoo-ha about the funny papers.

________

for Sunday Muse #130. 

The Greatest

"You are what you believe you are." --Prophet Omega

Back then, some old fart said to me,
"Your arms are too short to box with God."
Then he leaned back, satisfied.

Serenity was the aim, around those tables.
Serenity is something
that sometimes begins with mayhem.

Muhammad Ali. The Greatest.
In my white bread world of childhood, I heard the gloves land.
"Stupid name."
"Draft dodger!"
"Uppity."

I saw, on tv, Joe Frazier pound away at you like a force of nature.
blows any one of which would have leveled an ordinary man.
"This must be what dyin' is like."
This is what I know:
you must tell yourself what you are, before you can become what you are.
And, oh, you will be a target.

Muhammad Ali, The Greatest.
No one has ever been themselves, created themselves, celebrated themselves, the way you did.
That kind of stuff comes with cost,
but you expressed the God you loved in every movement and every word.

Sometimes teaching begins with blood.
Who can witness pure wild courage and not learn?
I am in awe of you--
black
man 
Muslim
because this white Catholic woman sees her best spirit in you.
Is there better teaching than that?
Wham! The Greatest!

Back then, some old fart said to me,
"Your arms are too short to box with God."
But he was wrong, and Muhammad Ali proved it.

You can box with God
box WITH God
and do it with a holy fury.
________