I shook the hand
which shook the world
“I shook up the World!”
He once hollered
The hand of the man-child
Who destroyed Liston with a phantom punch
The hand from Allah which felled
Foreman beneath an African sky
Thought invincible monsters,
Yet slain like sheep
On the ropes
The hand which once struck like death
Now shakes involuntary sweat
From its tremor
The Man who renounced his slave name
Refused to be moulded like Clay
For the white, rich man’s,
Stone Age War
“No Vietcong ever called me Nigger”
He famously said.
And further, defiantly, he questioned
“Why should a black man
Travel thousands of miles
To kill the yellow man
On behalf of the white man?”
Unanswerable, rhetorical
They sentenced him to prison
They took away his license
They took away his livelihood
They stole his athletic peak
And made him a Hero
As a child,
I watched with dad,
Entranced,
As he danced
Poetic verbal rings
Around Michael Parkinson
Now that once mighty voice
Is all but stilled
Reduced to barely audible whispers
Parkinson’s revenge?
Yet as I shook
That giant
Gentle
Shaking hand
And looked into those beautiful, boyish
Still playful eyes
And saw him slow-motion shuffle
To stroke the hair of a child
I knew I’d shaken
The hand of Greatness
“I am the Greatest!”
He often proclaimed
He was
And is
The Eternal Champ’
Black and Proud
And strong and free
Muhammad Ali
Ali!
Ali!
By Tony Green
Picture:
 | This work is from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work. |
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