Idle Purpose

I can't go long

or far

Can't launch a lunge that flings me

Half-way down the strip

Can't mount an irresistible attack

Deploy an obfuscating wall 

of blade

Impervious defense

Absent all these skills

What I have left is best described as

Loitering with intent

Puttering at danger's edge

Nosing about for openings

Ready to high tail it out but every bit as ready

To step in

True, this peripheral maneuvering lacks

Flash

Is totally deficient in

Dramatic flare

But is more suited to my repertoire 

My circumscribed, specific grace

The lesson here?

When counting blessings, always keep in mind

Every limitation can become a strength, if suitably defined

Plan B

When your strongest game
Isn’t strong enough
Whatever reason:
Pits your strength against a
Stronger countermove
You’re being just a bit too
Obvious
Today, right now, it just doesn’t
Click

Cue Plan B

So what it isn’t quite your strongest move
Rough around the edges
Perhaps a little
Raw

You’re going down—why not give it a chance?

Maybe it’s a better
Fit
A weaker strength may find the armor’s chink
Might be a surprise
Perhaps a better rhythm for the day

But careful! Watch and see
Evaluate

Your own low expectations of the
Lesser move
May suck you in, keep you pushing launch when
It won't ignite

If it takes you even farther down, abort! Abort!

Your A game, falling short of your desire’s
Still a better bet…

Pause

Reconnaissance
Scoping out my strategy
Formulating
Plans

Alignment
Target acquisition
All systems primed for
Go

Assessment
Tallying the fallout from my
Chosen act

Misdirection
Masking patterns that
Could betray my
Game

Reconnaissance, alignment, assessment, misdirection--what is left?
Ah! Rest. A precious chance to catch my breath

Interception

It's about control…
Or lack thereof

Without the confidence to
Take my game and
Shove it down your throat,
Force you to submit

I badger and I bait
Deconstructing what unfolds
Trusting I can handle
What goes down

Making the best of
My unstable game
Maybe I can commandeer your moves
Shape them to my ends

Provoking opportunities
Seeking reagents for a catalytic act

Typology

The Strategist
Relying on deliberative acts
Seeing, naming
Choosing
Always calculating one move or two
Ahead
Playing the odds &
Counting cards

The Visionary
Seeing possibilities that
Are not there
Until called into being by
Flights of fancy
Spiked imagination
Summoning with dreams

The Natural
Displaying unforced feeling for the fight
Racing the rapids of the bout on
Instinct, faster than the rational mind
Responds
Pulling off
Unlikely victories

Three paths to success
Three very different roads
Which traveler are you?

Closed Line

So many things I can’t control
Your speed, your
Laser-guided point
My paltry set of skills

I can at least
Set this one factor constant
Nail it to the wall:
My quarter four is closed
Shuttered, barred and inaccessible
Don’t even think
Of trying to assault that line

Except, of course
You do
Because that’s where you end
By force of habit
Preference and practice
You’re so very sure at the last moment
I will waiver, flinch and
Open up a little bit
A crack, enough that slender blade
Slips through

Except, of course
I don’t
And so your weapon meets a
Solid line of steel
In effect, you’re parrying yourself
And I need just riposte
Supreme efficiency

(Damn funny, too)

A lesson here to take into the world
Sometimes all you need is sovereign confidence in one sure thing

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…

Robots

I am beset by
Legions
Drilled in
Subroutines
Timed to the metronomic beat of
Habit

Advance, advance, feint-with-disengage-and-lunge

Lovely!

Perfect in execution but
(Thank heaven)
Flawed in application

Repetitious
Mechanistic
Formulaic
Numb

Programmed in deft
Sequential acts devoid of
Context
Drilled to inappropriate
Perfection
Vulnerable to
Improvisation, the
Unexpected

Present a paradigm that
Does not fit their
Program and it

Gums up their gears

Worms its way into their head and

Brings them down

I’ve never been so grateful for my glitches
For my rank and all-too-human quirks that simply don't compute!

The Middle Distance

I can
Sneak inside your reach
Nip you in the side
Harass you with impunity
Or,
Skip away and taunt you with
My
Inaccessibility
Receding possibility of
Your victorious attack

Split the difference?
Smack gob in the center and I’m
Dead meat
Easy target
Ice cream on a stick
Habiting the dread Bermuda triangle that
Swallows my defense
Makes me easy prey
Tattles my intent

Oblivious to when I
Cross the border to this
No-man’s land I
Suffer the delusion that I
Bob and weave
Float and glide
With matchless grace
Actually I
Hop in place
Tethered to the strip

A bouncy badger ball

Lesson learned? When
Inspiration fails
Mind blanks

Spirit flags
Score tilts in the wrong direction
If nothing else remember this one
Simple thing:

Move your badger ass!

Preparation: Take II

Tip, tap, not too fast

Give a little bounce and a tickle and a bite
Push, pull, push, pull
Not too tight

Make a little dash with a stutter and a thump
In out back forth
Watch me jump

Give a little squirm and a wiggle and a twist
Run away, duck down
Hah! You missed

Feint and tease
And patter and glide
Slip towards the middle…
And finish outside

Tip, tap, not too fast

Strategy Wheel

Starting simply
Straight lunge into four
Just 80 percent-a most convincing feint
Physical telepathy
A gentle probing of your
State of mind
Observe your twitch of blade
The shadow of your parry (duly noted)
Dictates my next act—a feint in four and disengage to six
Touché
1-0

And since it worked, why not? I try again
But having tweaked the dial
You select a suitable response—
Parry circle four, riposte
1:1

And so I shift in turn and add
A crafty circle disengage and end in six
and touch, again
2:1

Action follows act
Building the bout’s narrative
The story’s arc
A logical progression
Increasingly complex
Until the balance tips and I
Drop back
To the simplest of acts
And feint…

Break distance, breathe
The wheel begins again

Kaizen (改 善—Small Improvements)

Little steps, balanced forth
And back, keeping options open
Ready to explode

Feint and run away
Teasing you to push and charge
Hah! Counterattack

You can push, and push
Good! I pull distance, beat, deceive
Parry and riposte

You make touch against
Now I know what you will do
Here—try it again…

Incremental change
Subtle transformation, not
Metamorphosis

I can live with that--
Each instar a bit improved
It will be enough

Variable Speed

One beat of fencing time
A maddeningly inconsistent measure
Determined by my pace
My pattern (and, perhaps, the pulsing of my heart)

Time shifts, dilates and drags
Compared to outer worlds
Here, within the lines of battle
Speed is relative

In large part we are warring for
Control of meter
Your vivacious marches flustering my blade
Raising my pulse, threatening to wear me out

I struggle to regain control
Regulate the terms of the engagement
Deploy my leisured actions to
Lull your response, entrain your speed

My coiled spring of energy unwinds
Marking the seconds, pressure building up inside
My hairspring trigger quivers on the brink
Explodes, collapsing distance, stops the clock

In the eddy formed by my disruption of
Time’s stream
I pause and focus, breath, relax
Reset my inner metronome

And we resume the tempo of our dance

Categories of Action, 4 of 4: Offense

When the moment comes
     Pull the trigger
     Light the fuse
     Hit the gas
     Throw the switch
When you go, you go

No extra disengage
No last minute tweaks to distance, angle, phrase

Stop fardling around and
JUST HIT HIM

Categories of Action, 3 of 4: Defense

See Waiting Game 

Categories of Action, 2 of 4: Preparation

My footwork rakes the ground
Readying the earth
Cultivating space that feeds
My strategy, nudging it to bloom

The most perfect tactic
Executed out of context
Fails, of course
There is no proper act in isolation

This bout becomes a pas de deux
In which I lead you to
Expect exactly what
I will not do

I lure you to a distance and a pace
That lends me the advantage
Complements my strengths
Suits me to a tee

This dance is worth each single precious second
Of 180—
All I have, since in the end
One touch is all I need

Categories of Action, 1 of 4: Feint

Manipulation of your game
With my pretense
An earnest fib
(To be convincing, half-convinced myself)
Habituated to my threat
My deceptions deaden your response
Force you to reveal intent
And open you to simple, deadly acts

A little fencing humor!
Joke’s on you….

Relativity

The piste becomes a scale
At center, poised between “en guarde” and “fence”
A balance point
My opponent and I
Frozen in the moment when
All possibilities exist—offense, defense, feint and preparation
A place of ease and grace
Only pure awareness of what is
And what might be
A certain knowledge of what must be done

Of course we can’t leave well enough alone,
Passive in the prospect of an act,
Instead we slide the action forth or back
Time slurs
The moment shatters
Tumbles into instability

I push you to your line—
Perversely, I feel threatened
A wicked knot of fear expands
Stays my hand, delays my act
I know what should be done but cannot do
Paralyzed by seeing future states
Potential outcomes
Game, set, match

Pressed the other way—
I retreat, receding into history
Retracing histories of loss
Reliving how this has played out before
All too often ending with defeat

And so I battle towards the balance point
Where neither past nor future looms
Where possibilities expand
Where the bout is won, and lost
Both states being equally true
Until we look to see the outcome

Watch our foils—
Needles on a gauge of time and space and tension
Measuring potential in a span
Of 14 meters

Mirroring the world

Telling Tales

To execute a real attack,
It must be hidden
Outnumbered and o’ershadowed by
Countless lies, fakes, teasing shadows
And facsimiles

Cast out playfully as
Lures and distractions
To bait, and draw you in

All the while knowing
In myself
Absolutely which is which:
The decoy and the true

Oops

Often I find I only fool myself
Finishing impaled upon your point
As you recognize my perjury for what it is
A feint—an unconvincing one at that

Give me second chance to spin this tale again
Look…over there!

Waiting Game

My half unfocused gaze
Rests lightly on your chest
My only task to breathe, relax and wait
While wrapping your attention in my
Dance of back and forth, of glide and bounce

There is no deadline to be met
No urgency to force the meeting of our blades
This is a challenge match of patience
A race to be the last to launch an act
In which the victor revels in defense
The vanquished victim to his own attack

In a world of options without end
Success dwells in narrowing the choice
One road is to dominate and seize control
The other, softer path to wait with open mind
Gently cultivating space that shapes opponents’ acts
Catch whatever comes and bend it to your will

The lesson taught?
Do only that which must be done