SQUARES

SQUARES

dark squares
light squares

he is a classy player:
knows the precise order
of the relationship between them

also is expert with clocks
has clearly established
in the minds of
all and sundry

that come Hell or
high water in a particular game

losing on time
is outright impossibility

Oh that imperial palace
of a poem

    there we see chess in
all its class oppositions
and anxieties

the bishops scrambling down
diagonals like
Hurricane pilots intercepting
the Luftwaffe fighting
to get altitude

in the sky it is so much
nobler

      easier to succumb
to the mythology of the machine