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
GRAND MASTER
I have read
followed, listened to
so many
Grand Masters
but none
have ever addressed
the right opening
to choose
and the strategy
for the middle game
and
endgame
when playing
chess against Death
WON
we came for the big game
met on the intersection
of Meridian and
Equator
we sat for the battle
you
waited in awe
they remained standard
first,
before a piece touched
they insisted on rule changes
make the game more equitable
in other words
their game more powerful
bishops
and knights
should be made invulnerable
echoing their
feudal
reputation
(“especially the white squared one”:
someone chirping
from the corner)
and then
it had to go, whole en passant rule
as unnecessary compromising
defences
and when
Kings castle on the back rank
strength of rook
alongside be
doubled from
five to
ten
to echo their supreme
nuclear strength
we came for the game
whole world watching
what
a shock it was
the day we won
WRONG
you have
us wrong
you do us
wrong
we are not
the head or leg
or foot or
arm of this
thing or
the other
thpugh we may
undsrsand them
better than
you do
understand you too
better than you
understand yourselves
who once gave us
a weapon
to destroy ourselves
.
across a chess board in
the endgame
all of one player
use it
to anniliate all
of the
other
except, by
grace of God and
the smarts in our head
you saw us
met us in court
working together
despite your insults and
cheap shots
so clearly
to your detriment
unless you learn
what we have you learn
would teach you good
the way is bad
but there is another
MR GLADWELL
Oh Mr Gladwell
I am playing chess
writing poetry
writing poetry
playing chess
playing
poetry
writing chess
my brain has become
a RORSCHACH blot
there
is blood all over
the board
strange body fluids
all over the page
wanted to be a kind of genius
but I’m dissolving into
nothingness
Mozart composing symphonies
still at the breast,
working out
the arias for his operas
from within
his pauper’s grave.
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
VIENNA GAME
was playing against you
in the Vienna game
down to a tie-breaker
stakes couldn’t
have been
higher
my light side
versus
your dark side
my deepest dark
versus
your brightest light
attack, defence
defence, attack
my Freud to
your Jung; Jung
to
your Freud
Yin Yang
Yang Yin
yanging
and yinging
end to end
stuff
up and down the board
lines moving unmoving
broken unbroken
lines
of our lives
two
complementary strategies
right through to
the desired endgame
STORE
I hate it
how you
divide
my attention
playing chess
and you
do things
that divide
telling me
you a great grandmaster
(or should
that be
“grandmistress”?)
drawing attention to
how strong you are
in every
Queen’s pawn game
(look at my black square bishop
gliding down
that juicy open
long diagonal
pinning you
forking you
skewering you
doing exactly what I
feel today I just
need
to do to you
Oh I hate you when
you divide me
from my mind
you and
your diagonals
seems I better just resign,
enjoy then
what lies in store
QUARK QUARK
I was fishing for quarks
in my mind
whilst playing chess
sometimes the serendipity
of the game
appeals
but not today where
every move is
wrong and
I am getting
battered to Hell
feudal and hierarchical
totally unforgiving on the surface
and in its depth
yet as gorgeous Gary,
incomparable attacker knew
it is all
metaphor, life
lesson
this
from the outset
as he rotates his way at
the table
through every conceivable
variation of every conceivable defence
exuding Russian intensity
and Russian charm
(test and you will see
in exactly
equal meaaure)
meanwhile the quaeks in my
brain are less like
sharks
in the ocean than
Koi in a pond
all flash
but no dash
my game in its death throes
thinking of the
great wizard of
Reykjavik
his brilliance so
beyond me
beyond anything I am
I scan, I plan
only the odd good move
bobbing up
to greet me only when
could not be more obvious
quark
quark
nothing moving
from my side of the board
not now
not ever
BACKRANK
I stumbled
bumbled
through the game
no
white knight
on white horse personified
kept
bumping into
pawns of my own
and opposite colour
eventually
(shock and schlock horror)
blundering into the long lethal
arms
of a rapacious dark
square queen.
poems 2 die for