Tag Archives: chess

STILL TO ENJOY

STILL TO ENJOY

bliss
to blitz

that move too fast
for the human eye

proved
irresistible

so we mapped that
mythology across
a board of
squares
   with twice
sixteen pieces

bliss, there like
excess, success, redress
               piling on the
                            sibilants

recalculating the vectors
of numbers
six
   and nine (dividend when
six
   goes into nine,
nine goes into six)

these are the positions
figure out
the road
to victory

how
    taking that poisoned pawn
leads to double development

crushing
    annihilation, horns
closing in
tight encirclement

the Mongol army
leaving cities burning

women
still to enjoy
  

IF CHESS

IF CHESS

if chess
were music
it would
be Mozart

the melodies sparkling
and yet fastidious
scarcely can tell
anything of
rebellious Aquarius
in there at all

if chess were
              soundtrack

wouldn’t be
punk rock, wouldn’t
be Led Zeppelin

yet
   Mozart seems
prepared to
rock-
hard
            go hard
                  rock

be our favourite snotty-nosed
neo-classical punk

inclined to
    tease the establishment
as far
as he could get
stick
that
       dissenting finger
everywhere, from
tune to theme
(cleverly disguised to
rhyme
    with the times)

see them
for the wooden
major minor pieces
that they are
carved
      for the ranks and
files and
to dance the diagonals
(Archbishop black and Archbishop white)

LID

LID

Let me
shut the lid

the fallen, the victorious
even the defeated
are right as rain

whilst
there is no sang-froid
with our
two generals

in this game
of question marks
and exclamations

a different kind of
battle is determined
by the opening move

only now
ironically as
my eyes fail me
do I start
to see the patterns

too late
for that old crazy
dream of mastery

my default settings
not exactly in tune
with the
exponential dimensions
and configurations

of this impossibly calculated
not
a hint of gray eight by

eight square exact white
black world

wherein
you have the power
to wipe
the floor with me blindfold.

WORST THING ABOUT CHESS

WORST THING ABOUT CHESS

the worst, very worst
thing about chess
is the way the pieces
snigger at
non-Kasperov moves

their utter exasperation
when I blunder
revulsion when
I lose my queen

but still I battle
read the odd book
watch a few
You Tube videos

but
the game

I neither have
it by
intellect
or own it
by pure instinct

that dream
level
tactical
acumen

that sense of what
can be made to be

GRANDMASTER

GRANDMASTER

I am a grandmaster
I play chess
and more chess
and more chess

once i thought
when quantum
physics arrived
when every
board in
my head
became
superimposed

everything in
the Universe
everything outside
of chess
would curl
up at
the edges

I did not
to the best of my knowledge
curl up at the edges

maybe
   because there is
nothing in
me
outside of chess

maybe
I am so far
down the rabbit hole

I am the only thing
outside of chess
since the beginning
of two clock
recorded time.

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