I posted Charles Simic reading his in my blog a bit back.
Chess Poems Anyone?
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Feb 25, 2009
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#2
You know it is just a game pawnsolo :p
Has a good rhythm to it, I enjoyed reading it. You know if you knocked it around a little it would sound very Shakespearean, I'd love to hear it read aloud that way. I'm not going to read it out loud now here where I am, people will think I'm a nut. More of a nut.
1
In their solemn corner, the players
govern the lingering pieces. The chessboard
delays them until daybreak in its severe
sphere in which colors are hateful.
Inside they radiate magical severity
the forms: Homeric tower, light
horse, armed queen, last king,
oblique bishop and attacking pawns.
When the players will have gone,
when time will have consumed them,
certainly the ritual will have not ceased.
In the Orient this war was lit
which amphitheater is today all the earth.
As the other, this game is infinite.
2
Fainting king, slanting bishop, fierce
queen, straightforward tower and cunning pawn
on the black and white path
searching and fighting their armed battle.
They ignore the player’s pointing hand
governs his destiny,
they ignore that a tamed severity
holds his will and day.
The player is himself a prisoner
(the sentence is Omar’s) of another board
of dark nights and light days.
God moves the player, and he, the chess piece.
Which God behind God begins the conspiracy
of dust and time and dream and agony?
Pawnsolo -I love your poem - its in orbit at the Lagrange Point between Romanticism and PoMo.
P.S. I stickied this topic because I think its intent is mixed in with the quintessesence of the group.
Pawnsolo - why the repost?
Writch wrote:
Pawnsolo - why the repost?
mistake. wrong poem
Starts with Lines on the board then on the page,
Our plays as pieces or pieces in play;
The battle begins on a chequered stage.
Masters and acolytes locked in a cage,
The Black and White war blazes night and day
Starts with lines on the board then on the page.
Before you write or move, consult your sage
Least strategy and plot become the way
the battle begins on a chequered stage.
All the kings horses, all the queens men rage;
Beware all moves you make and words you say,
Starts with lines on the board, then on the page.
Your opponent and audience engage
you your breaking mind, leaving you to pray;
the battle begins on a chequered stage.
Is it your mind or your soul that you wage
A clever ending not given away?
Start with lines on the board then on the page,
the battle begins on a chequered stage
What was it,
Was it the voice inside
Which called me here
Into this line of
Unfortunate leisure?
Too stand here now
Alone; how I
Contemplate my utter
Desolation, my complete
Ruin.
Was it Her?
Her voice, which for so long
Has remained silent, suddenly
To escape me, her lips:
Only I choke on the importance of
The situation.
I remember that it was not
So long ago
When I was young,
I had no need to find myself alone
Along the many footfalls, fielded
Away long of paths of
Hope, or was it desperation!
O it was so long ago, alas
I was in the comfort of solitude
When her presence interrupted
And seduced away my notions of
Freedom. How sweetly she cooed
Emotions into desire. Her
Perfumed victory resonated within the
Essence of my very fabric.
She willed me my violent
Exposure, and fate left me
To watch Her, her Prince
Place into peril the most
Desperate and chaotic of loyalties.
I watched in helpless disarray
As they all sacrificed flames
Into the wet vulgarity of His greed.
I watched and waited. Waited and slide,
And slide as a serpent does into
The Garden of Her Treasures.
And as I mated into her I found
Myself deceived. My knowledge
Gifted by her sin of lust, I
Watched; the fates chain
My fever onto His pillar.
I watched as my character
Was sacrificed on his need.
Muted and cut, a broken
Eunuch raised a flag
Into service. A chimera assassin,
A weapon, a tool or something
Blended in-between. I no longer
Know. But now, I cannot resist
Him his command,
"Go now my Love, seduce Her, my queen. Mate with my enemy and return only if the soul, imprisoned, is worthy to replace her by my side; are you in your knowledge now worthy of your King."
I'm in grade 11. I wrote this for English class.
Reality Check
Flat world view of black and white
Rapt in linear lane
Verdict neither wrong nor right
To each his own, a distinct role
Predetermined part in higher order
Complex yet simple; a unifying goal
Our paths do cross
Evident loss
Check
Eternal crusade within oneself partitioned
A hexachord of strained melody
Fighting for dominance
One inevitably beaten into submission
Conflicting views forever abstracted
Weighing heavily; sacrifices made along the way
The second hand keeps ticking despite
Only time will breach the final foray
Obscured
Check
Silence
Across the clear, a single glance
Hesitation
Caught in a trance
Reality
Alone in a dark corner
Far from any of thine own kind
Treated as a foreigner
Potential yet unrealized
Sulking; in remorseful repose
Firm in conviction
Anger, prepared to dispose
Check
Silence
Assaying not to make a false move
Inadequacy abounds
Biding tension remove
Reality
Stealthy and cunning, a gallant steed
Never fancies the straight path
Catering to every need
A selfless warrior
Strategy second to none
Unique tactics
Won’t cease ‘til he’s had his fun
Check
Silence
Waiting for the first assertive move with apprehension
Every advance and retreat carefully executed
Serious internal deliberation
Reality
Close-minded, limited perception
One sees only dark, the other only light
Together fatal; deception
Standing strong
Where their paths do meet
Controlling from far reaches
The opposition must retreat
Check
Silence
On the defensive
Walking a tight rope, teetering on finality
Indecisive
Reality
Defenceless, devoid of confidence
Stopped in their tracks by any obstacle
Of minimal importance
Constant formation; a flock of sheep
Headstrong pursuit never found
Protecting fellow backs
Lack of independent thought abounds
Check
Silence
One moment, our eyes did lock
Devising an insurmountable scheme
A tactful block
Reality
Self-absorbed, gliding with superiority
Transcending all
Ego setting her priority
Swift, concise
Radiating a confident air
Flaunting a bejewelled crown
Nothing to share
Check
Silence
Even competition, seeing eye to eye,
Mediocrity overcome
No longer shy
Reality
Powerful yet fragile
Feeble without support
A humble giant, beloved, in denial
Towering over all, whilst feeling small
Each action deliberate
Clinging to walls for protection and grounding
Trapped, restricted, resulting in forfeit
Check
Silence
Didn’t make the move expected
Time running short
Emotion undirected
Reality
Multiple personalities internal
Attempting to find a balance
In isolation, unstable
Close-minded, opinionated;
Determined
Small, lacking confidence;
Persuasive when organized
Selfless, logical and strategic;
Stealthy
Lonely;
Eminent potential
Self-absorbed;
Powerful
Full of self-doubt;
Most-valued
Reality check
Silence
Here we are in this noble court
The hourglass having reached its final grain of salt
None too short
All at once a King will fall
A sound is heard
The victor’s call
Dominance decided at long last
The fallen met with rapture and sorrow
Wholesome defeat
Checkmate
Oboehart -
It looks really promising, there's some phrasing i've spotted in there that really appeal. But I need your help... it's too broken up with the formatting.
Could you try to re-do the formatting by putting it in a text-only editor like Notepad, then copying it from that, then paste it in here (overwrite what you have by using Edit)?
That way I can see what belongs to what and which are titles, etc. The lines are really distracting.
Across the battlefield
In gallant opposition
Ally and enemy stand
In perfect symmetry, then
Strain for position
And material gain
Til one must yield
Mometarily defeated
But wiser for the pain
Yeah. Thanks for the tip. :)
Can you figure out which piece goes with which paragraph? It's all a big riddle. Every line connects to chess in some way.
The chess game
the daunting hovering of simmering sun boils radiated through the afternoon air...
they could almost even taste the heat.
"Check!". It was too late.
too late to be; to late to go.
Dante extracted the pawn from G6, the white king was in trouble.
It seemed however vague, however solemn, and, of a kind-
like the kind of solemn one hears whilst sitting under a tree, and the wind blows.
Far far away...
It was in another world, in another time. Dante could remember the G6 pawn that day.
Checkmate was on f7. Two rooks, one queen. There was no way to win.
the simmering sun boils radiated through the daunting air.
They could almost even taste the heat.
Dante, had just escaped.
-from reality, once again.
OBOEHART, nice poem, i like.
Sisyphus: I liked your short vignette, it was well composed. Here's 'A Game of Chess' from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, which doesn't ostensibly have all that much to do with chess, yet more subtly does. Can't harm anyway, since it's such a great piece of poetry:
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carved dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’
I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
‘What is that noise?’
The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag —
It's so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
What shall we ever do?’
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said —
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been
the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot
gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot —
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night,
good night.
Mar 19, 2009
0
#16
mine is on my profile .... maybe not profesional enough to go on here ....
Apr 21, 2009
0
#17
This sonnet was written by someone named Gwen Harwood
A Game of Chess
Nightfall: the town's chromatic nocturne wakes
dark brilliance on the river; colours drift
and tremble as enormous shadows lift
Orion to his place. The heart remakes
that peace torn in the blaze of day. Inside
your room are music, warmth and wine, the board
with chessmen set for play. The harpsichord
begins a fugue; delight is multiplied.
A game: the hearst's impossible ideal-
to choose among a host of paths, and know
that if the kingdom crumbles one can yield
and have the choice again. Abstract and real
joined in their trance of thought, two players show
the calm of gods above a troubled field.
Thanks for putting that one up. Fun..
Art unlike thought cannot perish -
it just is. or was. or will be.
an empowered peace on display.
in a gallery ship,
advanced by the enslaved
bent at the oars, if ands, no buts.
The pawn becomes,
the queen is becoming,
the king a pretender in a play.
To raise a new one or raze the old one -
by decimation or demarcation:
the tyranny of black and white.
What rule can govern death and life apart!
How great thoughts burn alive a Black and White
War, so that now darkness reflects as light.
Has science shattered piece from peace as art?
Who but you and I see the end from start!
Hanging from a tower knowing the fight
Wanting us is not about wrong or right;
Hence forth our symmetry shall fall apart!
Waste us away our position and time,
Howl the difference between love and hate.
We are one with justice or two with crime,
Heaven and Hell gamble souls on such lines.
Where mortal desire is God and State,
Heaven has no Hell without a checkmate