Tag Archives: chess

CHESS

CHESS

a round peg
in a square game

minds as scrupulous
as serial murderers’

send there
the Knight, with its
principle of rotation
key to
the deconstructive
logic of
the game

and me
learning so little
even by
process
of accretion

not yet close to
developing
the whole 360 grandmaster
vision

no one going to put
me in
a King’s
Gambit TV series
great
    move coming on its way
telling
the camera to push in

no here
     the lens would get
my blunders skewered

and defeat be
syncopated to those
ruthless clocks

and those
white black zombies
skeletons of whatever
mythological
         demons
mystical angels

shipped back to the shelf
in coffin-lidded box

leaving me
         to muse on the distance
between myself and
the mystery
at the heart
      of this pattern

player
   and pieces
            light and dark
death
and life

defence
       attack

all falling
       into place within
this great
little
     arena
files a to h
ranks one to eight

such
  sweet symmetry
to this
on-going trial
error torment, perpetual debate
constant revision
in practice
           theory

square the hypotenuse
on black white bishop diagonal

chess as life
chess as being

SPEAKING DIAGONALLY OF WHITE SQUARE BISHOPS

SPEAKING DIAGONALLY OF
WHITE SQUARE BISHOPS

white or black
it is the fate
of this bishop

to cling diagonally
to the white squares

long
range woe slinger
if you are
ecclesiastical
so is
   every Angel of death

alabaster brain
under iconic mitre

you trust
to a white theology
to avoid abyss

the enemy knight
so alien a being
to your simple understanding

to close on one
only to hear
it has disappeared

trying
   to always be on track, most
when fianchettoed
demanding clarity
fearing
    antithesis

for you
     other colour comes
to challenging everything Holy

all war
      jihad unless

it be crusade

SQUARED

SQUARED

the Universe
likes circles

the Universe
is beholden
to ratios
and squares

speed
of light
squared

sixty
   four squares
in eight by
eight
light square
start e4 d4 nf3 c4
dark square
       alternating configuration
stop with
a hashtag

and
   let us not forget

square deal
square meal
      square shooter
square up

and all those squares:
Times, Red,
and Trafalgar

without which
   what would history be?

C & C LTD

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

SMOTHERED

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.

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

GOODNIGHT MOVES

GOODNIGHT MOVES

a game
of structure

and sequence, could
not be more linear

but everymove
of yours
ends up
  in checkmate

those knights
working hand in glove
with their
Queen;
   Lancelot-Guinevere
complicity in everything

L there
not for
     “love”
certainly not
for “learner”

and me
    with the foresight
of a pawn
watching front,
back and centre
overlooking
   the diagonals

outflanked, double
enveloped
    shanked
in the rear

your game a brutal
thing of beauty

seemingly all
of the cuff but
some inner mathematics
lies at
the heart of
such execution tapidly realised
planning (you
could figure
   it out
naked
could play it blindfold)

and me
   back in my box
my crypt of a crib

such great
goodnight that’s all
see you
   in another life moves

hit
   queenside, kingside, by
file, by rank

mastermind mistress
at the heart
of everything
   pulling all the strings

dominating ftom
the centre (and
oh
   what
a centre!)

every opening in
the book
     sheer innuendo!

what
    ecstasy to
one day
win

when every
loss such a pleasure.