Fight.Now.(Version I)

[Silas Thorne]

Well, there's a bit too much prancing around here. If you do your Daniel-san crane-position meditation soap-box recitation in the middle of combat, turning into eagles and avalanches or whatever suits you, you are far removed from the heart of what you want to write about. Maybe if you have bullet time, have the abilities of some shape-changing wizard in the animated version of Sword in the Stone, are on acid, or can take time out for conversation in the middle of battle, like in a John Woo movie or in some Old English battle epic, then perhaps you could write about this kind of stuff. But this sketchy mess of disconnected lines is too removed from the reality of what you are writing about and makes too much of itself.

Is it a bitter-sweet taste here because you've been smacked in the gob after eating a bar of chocolate? Where is the sweat and blood?

[E.A Rumfield]

Well, there's a bit too much prancing around here. If you do your Daniel-san crane-position meditation soap-box recitation in the middle of combat, turning into eagles and avalanches or whatever suits you, you are far removed from the heart of what you want to write about. Maybe if you have bullet time, have the abilities of some shape-changing wizard in the animated version of Sword in the Stone, are on acid, or can take time out for conversation in the middle of battle, like in a John Woo movie or in some Old English battle epic, then perhaps you could write about this kind of stuff. But this sketchy mess of disconnected lines is too removed from the reality of what you are writing about and makes too much of itself.

Is it a bitter-sweet taste here because you've been smacked in the gob after eating a bar of chocolate? Where is the sweat and blood?

The summer after I graduated high school me and my friends used to hang around our neighborhood drinking smoking being delinquents. We used to buy weed from a friends older brother. Lots of innocent fun til we meet a childhood friend of his. An ex-Army Ranger, obviously deranged but it wasn't so obvious initially.

He came around with stories from his semi-profession kickboxing career. We all thought we were tough kids. That first night we meet it was myself, Justin, his brother Joe and Adam along with Al "PTSD" Foster. Al wanted to showcase his kickboxing skills and we were the dummies. I was the biggest of my friends so I was the first to involuntarily volunteer. That first kick, man it hurt but you can't show that.

Adam the runt of the group was the first to take a head kick. Justin was charismatic to stupid people and always managed to escape the toughest trials and I am sure he will for his whole life. After that we were all initiated and talk began of starting a fight team.

One of the first times we spared together it was after a big snow storm in a January deep freeze on a football field in the dark. I spared with Al and it didn't end well then and it never would. Adam and Justin spared and Justin won like he usually would.

After that we would practice everyday in my basement for hours a day and I went to the gym everyday anyway. In the mornings I was too tired to move. One day I was sparing with Al or Al was beating the **** out of me, he went to knee me in the face and he did but he also dislocated his shoulder so Adam had to drive him to the hospital.

Me and Justin would fight often and I would always win, Justin being a cocky ******* and me being what Justin thought he was but bigger and smarter. Not to say it was easy he always put up a good fight, he put everything he had into it.

Anyway I think eventually we all started to get tired of waking up bruised and beaten with rug burns. Justin was best at avoiding Al, me and Adam not so much. It got really bad when one day Al came to my house looking for me and started talking to my mother. After that it was over. No more fight team. I'm not sure how but we wriggled away.

Soon after Joey got Al a job working with a concert security company. Al soon gained a reputation for being unstable. Al would still call me every now and again to go to a strip club or get drunk or do some cocaine or something like that. Al lived not far from me with his aunt and uncle. He used to brag about how his father was a serial killer and how he had been executed by the state.

So many stories he told me I'm not sure that I can relay them all. Living in a trailer park in Gary, Indiana going on crack binges. On time he and a friend robbed some dudes van. Apparently he owed Al money. They smash the window and drive away. At the top of a very steep hill the car runs out of gas. So these two grown men together have maybe a dollar fifty in change so they proceed to push the van to a gas station down the hill. At some point a cop comes along and they think they are ****ed. Instead the cop asks if they need help and steers while they push the van. I also meet his younger cousin who was no less of a piece of **** but that is for another story.

Eventually Joey moved out of his mothers house into an apartment. Al moved in as well. It was always weird to see Al, by now I was fully aware of what a sick **** he was. He was trying to move his wife and children back from Indiana. One time I went over to the apartment with my friends Adam and Danny. Likely to buy some weed. Al handcuffed me, duck taped my mouth closed and held a gun at me. Apparently Adam had gotten the same treatment earlier. They did a little photo shoot.

Soon enough Al gathered enough of money to bring his wife out and once that happened the apartment went to ****. They were truly disgusting people. Filthy. I feel bad for his children when they grow up. Poor bastards.

I heard a story of how in Pocono Penn. Al ****ed a fat toothless hillbilly on the side of the road. Al verifies it with the utmost pride. Other people lived in that apartment on and off to help pay rent but eventually they lost it. Al moved back to Indiana and took his wife and children with him. That ladies and gentlemen is what mixed martial arts is all about. Mental illness.

[Silas Thorne]

That's interesting, but isn't this disturbing life experience/story a bit out of place here? Maybe you could put this elsewhere, yes, like a blog? And I've met a couple of psychotics in my time that did martial arts, but that didn't lead me personally to associate mixed martial arts with psychosis.

I was commenting on the poem. Did you have a comment of your own on the actual poem or are you just trying to turn it into your own thread? I think it's obvious from my comment above that I didn't like the poem, but still, Jeos put it here so people might read it.

[E.A Rumfield]

I just felt like sharing.

[Jeos]

Well, there's a bit too much prancing around here. If you do your Daniel-san crane-position meditation soap-box recitation in the middle of combat, turning into eagles and avalanches or whatever suits you, you are far removed from the heart of what you want to write about. Maybe if you have bullet time, have the abilities of some shape-changing wizard in the animated version of Sword in the Stone, are on acid, or can take time out for conversation in the middle of battle, like in a John Woo movie or in some Old English battle epic, then perhaps you could write about this kind of stuff. But this sketchy mess of disconnected lines is too removed from the reality of what you are writing about and makes too much of itself.

Is it a bitter-sweet taste here because you've been smacked in the gob after eating a bar of chocolate? Where is the sweat and blood?

Ok since you commented as a connoisseur I’ll allow me the time of comment on your comment … just to clarify certain points.
First there is a translating issue…if sometimes it’s relatively easy to translate and the result might be even better than the original, in other cases it is extremely difficult to avoid not perverting the original rhythm and content.Nevertheless,
Figh.Now. in another anglo forum, (the level of which is also good –trust me) however remaining controverse, was differently appreciated.
There are different kinds of contemporary poetry and I could send you a lot of (what YOU call)“disconnected” poems considered good poems from great modern poets - or considered as such.
“Well, there's a bit too much prancing around here. If you do your Daniel-san crane-position meditation soap-box recitation in the middle of combat, turning into eagles and avalanches or whatever suits you, you are far removed from the heart of what you want to write about. “
Of course you do not the “meditation” as you call it while fighting ! I did full-contact sparring so I know what I’m saying.
In the poem I’m referring to something subliminal, something that is already in you…you do not need to stop “to meditate”. Somehow but in a human way YOU ARE THAT.
If you are enough acquainted with martial arts history, you certainly know about humans inspiring themselves on animals fighting behaviour, in order to develop new tactics & moves , etc.
To make things even more complex there is another source of inspiration besides Asian martial arts: the ancient Western concept of warrior that could be personified for example by Achilles or by certain Celtic heroes as Cuchullain.

“too removed from the reality of what you are writing about and makes too much of itself.”
Well I suppose I still have the right of feeling like I feel when I fight…it’s like you are saying to me what and how I should feel…when you are circling (you know, there is circling, sidestepping, etc, that’s abt footwork) your opponent, feeling him (or her!) you are LIKE an eagle preparing a series of – ideally… - devastating attacks (avalanche) OR if your footwork is smooth enough, like…”the passage of an archangel” .
Anyway this is abt figurative language. If you want to write a poem on fighting just with things like” and then suddenly I felt a rush of fear” (which is a normal sensation) well it’s your right but I see and live fighting differently from you.

And why are you talking about reality? For God’s sake man, poetry allows you to recreate reality. Or in other words no one can dictate what reality is.

Summing up: fighting ,for me, can be a rich, epic and transmutating spiritual-tool ! In its own way fighting is a kind of intense meditation – there is no room for anything else, you have to be totally present…however in that presence can be much more than just Jeos or Silas (that body, that ego…)

“Is it a bitter-sweet taste here because you've been smacked in the gob after eating a bar of chocolate? Where is the sweat and blood?”

In Zen bouddhism some say that the taste of life is bitter-sweet…and what’s life but a fight ? But I like that taste like the one of high quality green tea. With regards to the sweat & blood…? Yes usually I sweat a lot and I could have written about broken bones...BUT WHO CARES ABT THAT?

To finish with it’s my opinion that in a poetry forum we do not need to be brutal, just honest. For it’s too easy to be brutal in such a context.