CHESS POEMS DEC 27 2024
MOUNTAINS
the mountains
are giant pieces
awaiting
their first
move
I think
they have defence up
their sleeve that will
nullify our opening
set a trap with poisoned pieces
that will lure us
to a
great fall
but we have moved but
no one sees it
news of
the push of a pawn
into the centre not
yet having
reached us
time seeming to move
so slowly
the game
taking forever
yet Black is thinking through
all possibilities
getting those mountains
off the back rank
volcanoes tsunami marshalled
with the gravity of
millennia
all
at the speed of light
****
SMOTHERED
smothered mate
Mr Bond
love of
Queen (now King)
and country
has
squashed you
into a corner
no man supposedly
an island but
you appear
to be a
tiny one
deluded by the believed
magnificence
of your
self-
importance
and now
to put it bluntly
you are
screwed, have
lost the game
and this
foreign, highbrow, villainous
post-atomic, cyber-
crime,
deformed
asexual, intellectual mutant
gloating at how
you took the Gambit, swallowed
the poisoned pawn
in one wrong move altered
geopolitics
and the nature
of Empire
and you
with your jaw
hewed from granite and
tinker-tailor brain
wondering if like
Admiral Horatio you too
will be
elevated above the laiety
on towering
plinth
or column
as the streets of old-time Motherland clucking
for
her lost
children
all smashed to chicken shit
beg you
to resign next move
before,
like a guillotine, it befalls,
becomes the
iconic moment captured
for all time
that now will change
everything
****
C & C LTD.
playing chess
making love
knights
forking everything
on on the board
I think Cheech and Chong
as in my grandmaster stupor
Chong
and Cheech
Chong
and Cheech
to know where I am endgaming
right now
need more
smoke and mirrors
don’t want to Robin Williams genie myself
into a series of explosive
moves
rebounding in
my face
need some of your C & C good stuff to
take
the edge off
my embarrassment
need to conserve, focus
direct
until in sight,
within
touch I do get
to light the fuse
Oh
let the joke not be too
much on me my darlings
cold fusion
supreme complement
contribution
ultimate solution
to needs and desires, desires
and needs
****
FINISHING TOUCH
I love
your
finishing
touch
coup de gras
in the corner,
on
the back rank
Mike Tyson
punch
(the one
all plans crumble in the face of)
****
COUNTER-GAMBIT
pert patterns
swings
and roundabouts
shuffles
for advantage, pressure
for position
until levee break
dyke broken, centre
folds
chain
snapped, bullied
into submission
shield wall
cracked open
the dam shattered, Barnes
Wallised into
full flood oblivion
Oh the tactics and strategies
of this unforgiving game
such that
you never see it coming
untl you
do
express mailed
down the highway
****
EVEN THEN
it took a lifetime
to get
the Muse of Chess
to surrender
here secrets
and even then,
so much in the dark and
light arts
of this game
remains to be known
has not
yet been seen
stuff she is keeping hidden
to reveal to her
future lovers
masters and mistresses
whose mastery
of the game
will always
put me to shame
****
AGAIN
I want to learn
everything there is
to learn
about chess
sit through the night
ploughimg the games
of Lasker, Capablanca,
Alekhine,
Tal, Kasparov
Fischer
learning them by rote
can recite them move
perfect in
glorious notation
not that will
ever help prevent
my blundering
my way
into defeat, time
and time
and time again.
****
PAWN
I am pawn
move forward
one
step at
a time
kill sideways
(am in this
true Roman legionary)
can move
two at the outset
of battle aa
Initial flourish
but die
like a fly
unless
ascend to backrank
Heaven, become
Cleopatra, become
Boudecia
****
PLAIN
Knights are sneaky customers
pull that L bend out of nowhete
suddenly
it’s a fork
suddenly its
somthered mate
chess trick queatiln
knight must
be in
the answer somewhere
shifty guy
without which the game
do linear,
determinate, plain
****
ALL THE MOVES
we manoeuvred our
way across the board
and suddenly
we are iding across
the tiles
bedward bound
King and Queen
same opposite
building a palace in the sky
knowing
all the moves
****
MOVES
chess
sex
small
moves.
devastaing
consequences
your move
short and sweet
the board
spreadeagled
hope you are
about
your game
****
SUREFIRE DEFENCE
I must thank you
for teaching me chess
as I said, as
I told you i know
nothing about the game
have
never played
chess before
and so we played the
strip version
where every piece
I lost
I had to divest
myself, forfeit
some or other
item
of clothing
and so it was
you swept across the board
gobbling up my pawns
and devouring all
my larger pieces
until I was mated, naked
as a baby
long into the night
those victory celebrations
you not notcing
my bishops on
same colour diagonal
missing every
Knight fork, every
en passant
but
a bit of
a conflict of interest here
working on my own
and your own
grandmaster ratings
someday I must
teach you every
gambit
in the book;
every surefire defence
poems 2 die for 