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….

Stigmata

Body scan, contusions:
• Right forearm—2 x 3”, coming up a pleasant grayish-blue
• Left inner elbow—1 x 2”, green/purple giving way to orange at the edges
• Right ankle—an angry blushing slash across the bone
• Right collarpoint—a deep red star, one quarter inch around (a perfect imprint of your point)
• Pubic bone (ow)—can’t see the color, don’t really want to look
• A minor constellation scattered cross my thigh (mapping parries made a touch too late.)

Inside—a huge and tender spot upon my ego, slowly fading hues of rage, frustration, loss
Embarrassment

Which is cause and which effect?
Bruises first, it’s clear, correct?
Then pained emotions follow

I think not

Hypothesis: my insecurities well up
And, surfacing, attract the blade
Produce the welts
That manifest my inner strife
Blossoming from inside out, not outside in

If true, I only have to heal my soul
To stand upon the strip immaculate, untouched
Correct?

Damn, that’s harder task by far than cleaning up my parry…

Tapasya

Gentle violence
Unhurried speed
Patient action

A passion to succeed, indifference to results
Striving for perfection, embracing deepest flaws
Constancy of purpose, riding on the tide of no fixed self

The friction of these opposites
Fuels a furnace, forging liberation
Breath, mind, stillness, movement intertwined
Tempering a weapon flexible and strong

Offered in return, burnt at this altar:
Second-rate movies
Paperback delights
Lingering over dinner with a beer
Sleep
Time stolen from a comfortable life

Embraced austerities
For what?
A modicum of wisdom
The recognition that a feeling is a feeling
Release from the recursive drama playing out with “I, me, mine”
Anchored in experience
Rewiring the brain
To be a touch less harsh
A bit more kind

And sometimes, rarely
Ecstasy
Or, at least
A measure of content

It’s worth returning to this practice, time and time again

Sleeping/Waking

Surfacing from crevassed dreams, I snap awake
To crisp air, chilled feet,
A scrolling list of obligations patterning the surface of my mind
Stones upon the clear streambed, mirrored in its flow
My thoughts gather, tumble and propel me up and over
Swing my feet to meet the floor—they sink beneath the boards,
I lurch, flail, fall and
Slam! Snap awake
To crisp air, chilled feet

I recognize my last awakening a dream
An utterly convincing fake, a mocked up world
That I, with absolute conviction, took for real
But now I am awake,
I think…
_______________________
Codicil

Stars wheel overhead
Briefly, life makes sense. Dawn comes
Insight slips away

Soundscape

Open Bouting
Tik tac, tik tac, tik tac, thwack
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle thump
Schhhhhhhhhifff thwok
Tap, shuffle shuffle, tap, shuffle shuffle
Tap tap thwack
‘Opah!’
(Damn)

Lesson
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘Humph, not awake’
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘Better’
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘H’okay, pretty good!’

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!

Changing Shape

Over time
My rough edges have worn off
My angles rounded
Sharp corners, knocked against the world for fifty years,
Have softened and conformed

Like a limpet
Settled for all time in one specific place
Where my infant drift chanced to descend
My rocky home has molded to my shape
Cradling, constraining
Holding me in place
Settled and secure

This late developmental spurt
Has buggered that
As D’Arcy Thompson pointed out
The chance of growth proceeding
Uniform and constant over time
Is vanishingly small

My whole configuration shifts
Veering off in new directions
Altering proportions
Spiraling where once my linearity progressed
In clear and measured pace

Small wonder, then
That nothing seems to fit
Not people, places, livelihood or habits
My tailored niche
Uncomfortably tight

At this late stage of life
Can I regress,
Recapitulate an early state
Release my limpet grip
And float?

I know it's my own effort

Clutching at the earth

That holds me down

This is what I've read:

With any relaxation—tense the muscle ‘til it hurts,
Breath into resistence
And release…

Beyond Words

The smooth, elastic, living feel of dough
That signals it has been sufficiently massaged
And wants to rest and rise
The proper thump of nail against a finished loaf
The judgment that, no matter what instructions say,
These cookies need a half-cup more of flour,
A pinch more spice

I can’t explain these things in words
I know them as impressions gleaned from scent, touch, sound
I can only show you, time and time again
And hope you catch the subtle cues
That constellate this art

I know the same is true for you:
I push you to explain
“Good moment for attack”
How my intuition will discern the proper action
What it means to “trust my body”
The need to collapse the distance on defense
And when to feint

You can no more transplant
An understanding of my adversary’s mind
Than I can parse the smell that signals when the cake is done
You can only drill me, time and time again
And hope I catch the subtle cues
That constellate this art

A lifetime's not enough for mastery of one domain--of course I try for both!

Wisdom of Liars

Thoreau, de Beauvoir, Rajneesh, Castenada

Henry lived a dedicated life
Inspired thousands, millions, even
Bright-eyed, dewy idealists
Shed the world for cabins in the wood
At his example,
Seeking in themselves for self-reliance.
How much does it matter, then
That his prose conveniently omits
The weekly trek to mother’s house
For food and laundry?
Men’s independence ever rests
On women’s work

And women’s independence!
Rebellion from the social drudgery
Traditional provision of food, shelter and succor
Simone the pennon held aloft
To lead the charge.
To those who held her “mannish” she replied
“no, just a person.” Yow.
So, how much does it count
That Sartre trampled her affection
Dignity and pride
Left her bruised and battered in the dirt.
Her principles were sound
If not their application

This being so
Why should I dismiss the words of
Spiritual sages
Dragging feet of clay?
Or in the Bagwhan’s case
Ferried in a fleet of eighty Rolls
Symbols of his so-unworldly life.

And Carlos, what of to make of him?
Those pesky call slips
Giving him the lie
Dreaming in the stacks when
His thesis puts him in
Don Juan’s fierce tutelage.

Maybe earnest liars
Are God’s fools
Deceiving their disciples, and the world
While accidentally touching
Some great truth
Despite themselves

It’s worth considering

Buddha had it right: the lotus grows from mud