Dave Bonta's "Martial Artist" is a tiny poem that makes a martial artist out of someone quiet, secretive, and not quite in control. The speaker says they go "in secret," as if this practice, whatever it is, belongs to no audience. There's no crowd or teacher, only an inner soundtrack: the speaker's own heartbeat, which the poem calls a "score" written "for bell and wind." That image is lovely and slightly mysterious, giving the fight a kind of music and an outdoor, open feel.
Then the tone shifts. The speaker is "drunk" and defends themselves "with a late foot," a kick that arrives too slowly. It's a funny, humble detail, and it undercuts any heroic picture of the title. The mood is intimate and a little wry: part solemn ritual, part stumbling. The poem seems to suggest that skill and grace can sit right beside clumsiness, and that the speaker is fine with both.