Tuesday, January 15, 2013

checkerboard friends

red and black, checkerboard friends.
here we go.
i'll be light and you'll be dark
like our souls
and the first move will be mine
because you always prefer to have the last word.
diagonal pawn
i am
calculating my next move
and then it's all mind games and ticking off turns.
back and forth
ping-pong
on the fence and on the move.

the shape of an L for
the nobleman that you are
but you can't fool me.
i'll take the straight line to the end
to get a piece of myself back.
you'll return it because you have to.
those are the rules.

the king seems to have all the power
but his moves are limited,
and therein lies your mistake.
it's truly the queen,
i,
who has all the power,
command of the board now.

watch me as i defeat you
thought by thought
word for word
piece by piece,
swimming
fluidly through the madness
across numbers and squares
and the awesome force of your hand
can't do a thing
because the control paradigm has shifted;
i had to crouch to your level and
play this despicable game with you,
a game you've gotten good at over the years
but haven't quite perfected.

off you go to a comfortable corner
where hiding has become a futile excuse
to all you are,
but laid out here in front of me
in plain view --
checkerboard friends,
checkerboard life --
i can see your thoughts
before you can voice them,
what otherwise might evolve into insult or injury.
and for the first time
the flaws in your thinking are apparent, too,
the flaws in the righteousness you claim,
the flaw in the plan
and now you'll offer a waltz for peace,
one-two-three,
one-two-three,
ample chance to trip me up
and then make your final kill.

but if you'd been anything close to sincere
you'd have seen
the trap i've been setting for you
from the get-go.
i'm here and you're over there,
hand outstretched for a dance
but in the midst of your inaugural bow the queen has triumphed.
ivory over ebony,
good over evil,
woman over monster.

a whispered farewell now
for you
and some sort of closure now for me
in the form of
checkmate.

here we go, here
we go.

02.2010

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