The Man, the Mouth

This fictitious poem is inspired by Anthony Mundine, a much maligned, flamboyant athlete, who never quite lived up to his own hype after switching from professional rugby league to boxing.

Marcellus Black Magic Ellis,

Jed Jedi Jameson wants to fight you again?

Paul, that unco loser fights like an orangutan!

The Ellis/Jedi training camp would be as ace

as a submarine soaring into outer space.

Shaggy men of the forest would give chase,

their gangly arms thrashing about the place.

To those wild orange dudes we gotta be fair,

the Black Magic Man would be bustin moves

Allah would have trouble teaching to Estaire.

Is that so?

Tell me about your training camp

for the Benny Bulldozer Beane bout.

Paul, first I wanna tellya-bout ‘The

Black Superman Plan.’

Your latest album?

Yeah, the title track goes like this.

Beane fancied himself a master tactician,

but couldn't land leather on this magician.

His corner men found it super frightening,

how my flashy flurries laughed at lightning.

The wounded Benny Beane went berserk

with pile driving jabs and fancy footwork,

but this hip hop dancing pugilist Ghost

made him look as agile as a fence post,

and killed the myth of a stoush he'll shirk

I’m a boxer who has held on to my health

against men who made Satan s**t himself.

It’s comical repartee coupled with fistic fury

that convinces every expert square ring jury

I fight flabby taste testers from the brewery,

but my flurry-combination compositions

have destroyed great warriors ambitions.

The hapless Himey Hydrogen Bomb Heller

told Fight News he’d be the victorious fella

The one time he landed flush I didn't flinch,

dodging his ton per square inch was a cinch!

Marcellus, where was I?

Ah your training camp,

for the Benny Bulldozer Beane bout,

what can you tell me about it?

After vintage victories

over Harold Hand Grenade Hodgkins,

Ghengis Cyclone Capone, Con Catapult Compton

and Kane Krakatoa Krane

I needed a sparring partner that makes

head butting supersonic flails look free of pain.

I would’ve beat Beane if I’d sparred for just one day

but so my rep as the best in the galaxy wouldn’t fray,

I made fun of the diabolical Brutus Adonis Atilla Hun.

I said he couldn’t knock me out with an elephant gun.

Brutus drove over from Albany to go toe to toe.

He imagined the accelerator was my pretty face

as he passed Mark Webber on the Nullarbor bro.

He’s hell mean, he shaves with a machete

and cuts his finger nails with a guillotine.

He played pin the razor blade on the piranha,

in a wading pool, before he’d seen inside a pre-school.

Marcellus, I’ve heard Brutus is

a more ferocious version of a young Mike Tyson.

What else can you tell me about

the only Catholic in the world

with Atilla as his confirmation name?

To ordinary men Brutus is scarier than an ogre

with woolly mammoth tusks for body piercings.

The Delai Lama says ‘facing Brutus is real bad karma,

he has the power in both hands to slam dunk a shot put,

while weighed down by Henry the Eighth’s suit of armor.’

Legend has it he once fought a dragon bare knuckle,

that he cantered to the ring without an uneasy blink,

and made that fire breathing, bunyip snacking,

winged goanna look like a cowardly, unco skink.

Marcellus, according to the Daily Telegraph,

Brutus was attacked by a whale

and he left it sucking plankton through a straw, for a month.

Why aren’t you afraid of him?

Paul, before I gave that dude a boxing lesson

my Dad told me Brutus Adonis Atilla Hun

is as dangerous as a chainsaw fight,

on a barbed wire fence.

He said ‘I’d rather you try to out ski an avalanche,

while wearing scorpions for earrings,

than spar this bloke.

For some resistance training is

dragging a tyre around a football field.

Brutus Hercules Atilla Hun ties himself to a rubber dinghy

with a sumo wrestler in it

and runs backwards, across the Kalahari Desert.

His heavy bag has its own carriage on a freight train.

It was lowered into Camp Marcellus Ellis by crane.

After a round with Brutus Hercules Hun

I was expected to be rubble.

The dude stabs crazed hornet swarms

with his thorny stubble.

Marcellus, I heard you baffled this behemoth.

I gave Brutus an induction into my hall of destruction,

goaded that mammoth monster into pugilistic mania,

he tried to wreak more havoc than Dracula in Romania.

Black Superman’s golden gloves exiled him to Tasmania.

In the last round I used his head for a bongo drum

while I read the sports pages.

Marcellus look, Brutus is here.

Paul, I’ve got to answer this ultra-confidential call.

That bomb proof chamber looks private enough.

Marcellus, he mentioned a catchweight

and living in a sauna.

He claims he’ll still be as dangerous

as Jurassic mega fauna.

I was just offered two hundred million

to lead a celebrity boxercise class at Wembley Stadium.

Didn’t you say your phone battery is dead?

I’m just kidding, point me towards the dotted line.

With either hand I can strike him like a land mine.