Who would withstand a brother taking heavy punishment

Underneath twenty-pounder blows knees bowing, head hung stunned,

Bleeding lip, raw red eye, a putty body pasted towards cold floor,

The people loving it are shouting frenzies of delights

Sinking into a night a battered consciousness turns black

End of the day for him; the times of sunlight, movement, warmth

Perhaps a clod, a piece of lumber, shall not get up anymore

Just lying here and lumpish now, dumped sprawled inert coarse dross

No longer quickened clinging bones being beaten in large contempt

Nothing, no-one, can hurt him more, disturb his tortured flesh

Gone, as to come no more, a brother brought to sacrifice

On a brutally gorgeous glee enjoying torments to destruction

Anyone might be he, so tagged, so buttonholed, by time

And circumstance; an alter-ego substitute by wrath afflicted,

Tried by ordeal, hard-shouldering heinous miry grime of crimes

By wretchedness of ecstasies of broiling glutted crowds

Oh, does this persecution pull hard, on our innards drags -

What we would do, the crowds, the chilling thrilling rush,

Raw sinew ruptures, snaps aloud and cracks a breaking frame

Exquisite senses wilt, dissolving bloom impassioned aches

Which side of the fratricide is you; what part you choose to take,

Sustain either thunderous psyche blows, their gift slow-sinking pine

Or roar you with toe-ball fellows, who would wallow, feel quite fine

Where on the tightrope walk compassion falls your line?

Of the bears and the bulls the marketplace is packed and populous

And the marketplace, agora, forum, comes to be in time,

So we are told, allowed to understand of everything that comes and goes

Happenings under-wraps, things we redoubts would best prefer

Clandestine to remain, like are these burgeoned tumid feelings,

Animal-baiting insides churning bloats turned ravenous voids;

Owning this truth we spare our shames, abandon predicates, pray

Taking in way-stations towards owning needs from God

Call it mercy, forgiveness, covering-over, absolution, yet

It’s something shores-up, hard to come by in a cornered world

His penitents thrown down withhold no smallest reservation

Bare self-examined lives, self-censured, seen much as they are,

Knowingly only destitutes, unless stooped to be saved;

Enemies left alone, apart, from love’s rescue; depraved

Beings being picked up off the floor by gentle sturdy hands

By a man despised, of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs;

He understands