MATE
first
the chess
and there you
got me
King jammed
in the corner by
my own rook
your white knight
on a white charger
simple coup de gras
smothered mate
but nothing
like the chess
the sex afterwards
here the conflagration
much more hussars and
dragoons totally
Napoleonic
me and my Josephine
sharing our huge victory
pincer
movement, double
envelopment
Jena, Austerlitz cannot
hold a candle
to our fantastic
achievement
in the entirety of
military history never
such a
score achieved
MAIN LINE (THE KASPAROV VERSION)
feel i have been
here before
but after the first few moves,
main lines of the opening
all the possible
permutations of the situation
make it a mathematical
impossibility near
exactly certain
such nuance, subtlety,
precise artistry, infinte
calculation
in this rectangular game
of squares and
wooden carvings
from crude to most
elegant a regular
box of
delights, of wonderful,
well, surprises
and painful defeats, failures,
steep learning curves
things you
fail to
see (way beyond your
ELO rating)
but Tal saw, Fischer saw,
Magnus Carlsen sees them
with stunning
predictability
and Capablanca, my Cuban
maestro, saw them shifting
knights and pawns
across a table
under a palm tree
dreaming today’s moves
during yesterday’s sleep
when he
sniffs an opening he
is in
to take advantage
like the ocean
not
like someone we could
not possibly name in
such chess
circles
splashing around here predictably,
ankle-deep in a derisory
little stream
CHESS HYPERMODERN
rooks be chariots
and queens
are aircraft carriers
or used
to be
dead in the water
she be
missile vectoring in
on her
down the file, across
the rank
along her sweet open
diagonal
hypersonically
CLOCK THIS
I glare
across the board
at you
my need
for victory
my need for redemption
though not
necessarily
a queen
sacrifice
there is in chess
almost always
a really
good move
perhaps even
a best move, a
brilliant move
hiding behind it
submerged in the patterninf
and yet in plain view
clock ticking while
I rack my brain
to find
my moment
of mastery
the beauty of the pieces
finely carved, exquisitely
molded
expanding the brain
Star Child style
to
the edge of consciousness.
ENDGAME
playing chess
whilst our liar leaders
think about war
at the summit
of their lives
you don’t have
to be Bobby Fischer to
win
a nuclear match
just a matter of economy
and who makes
the
signature
sacrifice
puts it all out
there
tempts into an atomic
no-holds
barred
pawn gambit
poems 2 die for