Acuity

I don’t wear glasses when I fence
After all, how clearly must I see to hit these massy foes?
(Even the little ones are plenty macroscopic)

Besides, their blurry edges are better proxy for the world
It’s rare to find the outlines of our target crystal clear
Do you know exactly what you want or is your goal
Approximate
Oblique?

Forget the ambiguity of borders
Focus on the center with
Relentless gaze

Let peripheral attention do
What it does best
Tracking random movements and distractions
Warn of inbound threats

As long as I have depth of field
Perspective
I’ll do just fine
Half blind

Hierarch

You ask me for a bout
I graciously oblige
So blithe and unconcerned
Dancing at the edge of your exertions
Gliding out of reach or
Interrupting your attack
Tossing off a little fencing humor—counter attack with squirm
Feint and run away
Embarrassingly simple lunge and touch
5-1
Salute, and bout

We find each other on the strip
An even match
We dally, butterfly and vamp
Exerting all our wiles
I draw on everything I know of you to
Put one over
Game your quirks and foibles
Sometimes we end 5-4, sometimes 4-5
If I prevail, I know without a doubt that
You’ll adapt—next time I’ll need to
Up my game

Humbly, I ask to referee
And cycle in
Even watching it’s a struggle
To parse your strategy, call your blinding moves
When I plug in I become a stumblebum, a clod
A rank initiate
But you—so blithe and unconcerned
Dancing just beyond my lunge
Gliding out of reach
Interrupting my attack
A little fencing humor—now the joke’s on me
I barely score a touch

And so I backtrack to my first opponent
Reassure myself that
I can move
Can make the colored light go off
(More to my credit, to rehearse the moves that
I suspect might work some day, scaled up in
Speed and execution)

We cycle through the salle
A fencing reel of couples swapping partners
And frustrations
Egos waxed, and waning
Eclipsing and eclipsed
Tutoring and schooled
(And smarting from the lesson)

Pardon, may I add you to my dance card for the night?

Scheherazade

“What, again?”
(You roll your eyes)
“I tell you this repeatedly
I am not speaking English?
You do not understand?”

Oh yes, Я понимаю
But spin the tale once more

Tell me for the umpteenth time how
Clever disengage wins out o’er savage parry
And fearless straight attack triumphs
Against the evil squirm

Fill my head with glorious tales of
Canny strategy, ingenious machinations
Perfect form

These stories I will carry
Through my sleep, the nucleus of
Epic dreams,
In which (of course)
I play the hero’s role

Так, да, I understand,
рассказывают мне
историю снова!

Automotive

I want to be a car

High performance
Complex piece of engineering
Chock-o-block with safety features
Tested to the nth degree

Subject, sure, to bumps and dings
Marked after not so many years
By dimpled fenders, scratches on the side
(Not so different from what I suffer now)

But, short of a total wreck
So easy to repair! A crumpled bumper—pfft, it’s no big deal
Let’s hear it for industry standard
Duplicative swap-out parts

A falter in the engine?
Pop the faulty spark plug out,
The new one in, and
Zoom! Back on the road

Broken strut? Power off the bolts
Give it a firm whack, detach
Snug a new, strong bar in place
Instant stability

No prolonged convalescence
No inching back up to speed
No reconditioning
Just damaged…and then whole

Skip the lavish packaging
The moon roof and the heated seats
Just nail the basics—a smoothly ticking engine
Four wheels on the road

After 200 thousand miles
I’ll be ready to be junked
But until then

I want to be a car…

Proper Practice

By not trying too hard to
Make the touch
You’ll make the touch

By being unconcerned with
How you look
You’ll garner admiration

So take it
Step by step
Don’t push too hard

Sure, you’ll lose at first
But with time, I promise
You’ll know why you lost

You’ll try a proper action
It will fail
So what? You’ll try again

Eventually you will
Gain ground
Point by patient point

By not attaching to
Results, you will

Go far

Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing: Badger’s adaptation

Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in
Breathing out, I’m conscious that it’s

No small thing (given that it doesn’t always work). Prize the simple miracle of air, mindful of each hitch, catch, snag or ragged edge. Watch for the still point poised between the in and out

Breathing in a long breath, I know that I am breathing in a long breath
Breathing out, I

Purge the flotsam of a messy day

Breathing in a short breath, I know I breath a short breath
Breathing out I

Get to work

Breathing in, I’m aware of my body
Breathing out, I am aware of

Every injury I’ve ever had, an ever growing litany of use, somatic resumé

Breathing in, I calm my body
Breathing out, I

Breath through each bruise, ding, tear, stitch, scar and point of inflammation. Working like a barnacle to scrub all hurt and ill from out the endless sea

*now to the good stuff*

Breathing in I feel joy on the strip
Breathing out I feel

A welling eagerness for battle, curious to see, when pressed, what will spring out, a little bit of trepidation

Breathing in, I feel equanimity
Breathing out, I really try, but

This one’s hard—to be ok with any outcome, touch or touched, flow or choke, prince or foolish mammal

Breathing in, I am aware of my attachments and aversions
Breathing out, I recognize

Addiction to the colored lights, to victory, to bling, to all the self-aggrandizing myths I wrap around myself, embellishments of life; Antipathy to loss of face, dissention to my version of the truth, irritating people who won’t play the parts that I've assigned

Breathing in, I release attachments and aversions
Breathing out,

I tug at their barbed hooks, try to see them vanishing like mist

Breathing in, I’m aware of my mind
Breathing out, I am aware that my mind

Lurks, watching, endlessly engaged, meddler in the center of all acts, so clever and so maladroit

Breathing in, I make my mind happy
Breathing out, I try to strike a deal

You have a valued role! To notice and to name, suggest solutions and then (very important) step back and let the body be

Breathing in, I concentrate my mind
Breathing out, I try to concentrate, but

…Cereal or toast? Red boots or black? The cookies that I baked last night could use a little…ack! Begin again, again, again

Breathing in, I liberate my mind
Breathing out, I caste a net

Seining for the ping of distant cars, cats’ purr, ticking of the heat, the warm vanilla scent of wax, the itching of my foot.

Breathing in, I contemplate the transience of things
Breathing out I recognize

This sac of flesh and bone—all it is, and does, is just on loan and subject to recall. Each step I made today will be retraced, all progress lost with time. Everything I love—people, places, simple pleasures—will fade or break or morph into an unfamiliar form

Breathing in, I practice non-attachment
Breathing out, I figure that I

Might as well let go before it’s torn away

Breathing in, I practice letting go
Breathing out

Accept that, in the end, I can’t control my life, I open up my hands and wait for what drops in

Breathing in, I practice cessation
Breathing out,

I sit, a still point on the turning world, wheeling through the stars, fulcrum to a universe blissfully unaware of my attempts at meditation

Unconquerable

Note to self:
When being trounced, don’t frantically try
To even up the score

Resist the rabid impulse to
Make up lost ground
Attack against all odds

Goal one should be don’t get hit

Punch “reset” and
Renegotiate the terms of
The encounter

Throw up a flurried wall of
Obfuscating action
Sabotage the opposition’s game

Change the rules
Shake her faith
Infect her hand with doubt

Forget victorious
For now, just settle for annoying

If the pace was slow,
Go fast; the distance far,
Stay close

Cultivate a calm and even gaze
Accept that I’m already dead, and
Badger from the grave

When I’ve regained an even keel
Taken back the rhythm
Begun to lead the dance

Then turn the tide
Touch by careful touch—one eye on the clock
An easygoing haste

Now, to ink this on my hand
A cheat sheet when the chips are down…

What I Learned this Year

Attachment
Creates negative polarity
In time, it severs
Its own bonds

Friendship
Is a coin with
Two sides, else it is
Worth nothing

Loyalty
Can live on air
But, unfed, becomes in time
Quite thin

Compassion
Born of true affection
Blooms in arid wastes, seeks
Nothing in return

Hungry Eyes

I want your lunge
Her lovely feint deception
His facility to flick
Feather light, airing o’er my back

I want your equanimity when
Chasing seven touches, forty seconds left

I want her squirm, displacing target to
An alternate dimension

His ESP intuiting exactly
Where my tip will land

I long to assimilate
The beauteous traits deployed
By my opponents
Ingest them as my own

I want I want I want
Sometimes, to be
Anyone but pedestrian me

A Visit to Rockville Fencing Academy

50 Southlawn Terrace
Midnight, Christmas Eve
Beneath a bright Polaris
All’s quiet on the second floor
(Since, alas, we lost the mouse…)
And peace reigns in the corridor

Down the darkened hall
Beyond the stern, foreboding sign
(“Halt! Past this point, only patrons of the salle”)
A shuffle, giggle, clomping and soft “hush!”
The lock jiggles, pauses, and gives way…
In tumbles a multi-colored and chaotic rush

It’s not just dear Saint Nick, it’s the whole crew
Halfway through their rounds
Their break is overdue
In quest of cookies they’ve set forth
(As Badger Bakery’s rep has spread
From Maryland to All Poles North)

They polish off the platter
(Salty Oat and Chocolate Chip)
Tidy up stray crumbs, begin to chat and natter
They’re almost ready to embark, but lo! Attention strays
To jackets, neatly hung upon the wall
To blades, brightly arrayed

The elves begin to shuffle and postpone,
Glance at the Boss, their eyebrows raised
He sighs, and checks his phone
Mentally parsing flight times to Ukraine
Then shrugs and gestures to the room, and…
Lets chaos reign

The reindeer joust, bellowing and snorting
Up and down the strips
Noses alight with every touch, cavorting
Red Green Red Green Red Green White
The scoring machine reprogrammed
To belt out “Silent Night”

Santa fences epee, relaxing from his toils
A big man bouncing lightly on his toes.
The elves grab thirty-two inch foils
--Jackets coming to their knees,
Masks to their belly buttons--
And demonstrate their expertise

When its time to re-engage his troupe
A thump of the katana and they freeze
Gather up the scattered gear and, lightning, they regroup
Snip! Snap! Slap! Everything is back in place
The foils racked, the jackets clean and pressed
The trash thrown out, each cup and stray shoelace

Lights out, door shut, the racket fades
All’s peaceful, none would ever know
Except…the jumbled stack of broken blades
Neglected by their warder
Are wired, taped and neatly stacked
In perfect working order

With courteous formality
A neatly lettered note
“Thanks for your hospitality”
From distant sky, a jolly voice belts out
“Merry Christmas everyone
And to all, good bouts!”