The Game of Kings

Lay down the board, and set up the pieces.
Anticipate scenarios; obfuscate openings.
Be obdurate; obstructionist… obstaclize. Is it chance?
There are no dice to roll, no spinners to whirl, no cards to flip.
It’s all in your head… or is it?

Genteel aggression, with each piece
Having its role, inherent.
Sacrifice. Is there a choice?
Carried off the board for the
Greater good. Victim of a feint, a defensive
Ploy, or an outright attack.

What matters to you is results.
Annihilation, or a surgical strike, and a quick
Concession, or a reluctant draw. On the other side,
Your opponent questions, “What if …?”
As you shake. Pieces are returned, if
Not peace. Decide; your hand is already moving.
Make the unknown happen.

Thought….
Move….
Thoughghght….
Moooove…
Thght….
Mve…

Enough, poker face. I’ll show my hand;
I’m a king and a pawn, on this board we call land.

One Grandmaster controls my fate. The paradox of
Giving up ‘freedom’, but gaining much more.
Live by the rules. No choices but one; life or death.
Pieces taken. Pawns like Tommies in Flanders fields.
Expendable. A war of attrition. And the King?
Limited mobility, must be protected.
His Queen roams the battlefield like a Sherman.
I am all of them and more, but need to know where I’m placed.

Then there are those who reject the Grandmaster; feeling their
Role is sufficient. Living from square to square – no strategy.
Or thinking the players have abandoned the board, left
The room, gone to have lunch, forgetting to return.
There are other things to do.
Maybe it’s better to compete on level playing fields: chance,
Luck, randomness, and surprise; they rule play.
Backgammon, Monopoly, Blackjack, Scrabble.
Some skill, to be sure, but not quite enough.

I’ll rest here awhile on this square,
Seeking a common purpose between
My role and His thought.
Sharing a strategy, and ready for
Action. Aware of those around me: castles, rooks, bishops.
Each able to move in preordained fashion for
The common good, but also, like me,
Waiting.

Witless to History : A Pastiche of My Past

When Sputnik flew, and Kennedy fell,
I was rolling my wheels over the Common
Like that kid in ‘Make Way for Ducklings’, with
No.. knowing.. nothing of a Space Race or Conspiracy Case;
Just wondering if that waddling mallard would fly, or die.

Boston was blue, and we moved near DC one night
When Dad joined State while
Johnson and the hawks dreamt the
Crap that did Vietnam. I still had my bike.

But the boat to Europe left possessions in its wake.
The bike stayed. In the Kiddy Kabin, I used
A periscope to spy a
Wheel-like Coke sign in Arabic, through a
Porthole, steaming into Casablanca, before Paris.

There were spies in embassies then;
Cold War complications, contrasting the
Calm of Pont Neuf, and the Rue de la Ferme.
There really wasn’t much to report, and
I wasn’t aware ; a new bike got me
Round the Bois de Boulogne.

The Hague was... well, we heard that
Martin and Bobby fell.
A cyclone of cyclists; and across the North Sea,
Beatlemania shifted gears.
Our short hops were to London,
Riding down those wood-slat
Escalators to the Tube (way
Before the Kings Cross conflagration); Chelsea
Girls grooving to ‘Hello Goodbye’ on transistors,
Riding up while we descended…

…to The Philippines, and blessed Cebu –
Pearl of my dreams, and
A new Stingray with banana saddle
For my birthday; our gang ferried by
The still-operational landing craft to
Mactan. Then back to the harbor,
With Dad to check papers on a USN Destroyer,
Steaming its way west to lob
A few shells into Haiphong.
The New Frontier becoming The Great Society.

Once more to DC, and Watergate went down.
Shuffling through my paper round in Olde Towne.
John Dean on my list; an awestruck mention, met
By my handler’s : ‘Just chuck the paper over
The fuckin’ gate. We don’t want no complaints.
Cooperate.’

He’d have made a good Confederate, Johnny Reb,
Klansman-in-Training, cruising through The Bird in
His Camaro, traced by sullen black
Faces, and me getting cold-cocked in a school
Corridor by one of them. Didn’t even know the kid.

I had a 10-speed, and needed all of them.
That first year I biked out of Towne to school in
A ‘white suburb’, but the next year, eighth grade,
Found myself on an ‘Integration Bus’, riding
To a ‘black school’ closer to home.
A Civil Rights Initiative. Instead, I got
A Faceful of Fist.

Some shithead
Polyester-suited Nazi handed out leaflets at
Our bus stop: “Send the niggers back to Africa. They’ll
Be happier there, and so will we.”
J.G. and Johnny T. made them into paper
Airplanes and sailed them out the window as we
Rolled through The Bird. Two black kids picked
Up pieces of brick to return the favor.
No Freedom Riders here.

Sick from school, one day I
Watched the news and saw George Wallace gunned down by
Arthur Bremer, “The Smiling Assassin.” Still
Smiling as he was wrestled to the ground.
An American Dreamer.

Went north to high school,
Leaving my loving family, and a lot of baggage, too.
Took the Overground Railway, left my bike, and
The years rolled by.

These days, don’t cycle much; prefer
My feet on the ground, moving at my own pace,
Running past house-hidden wars, and character assassinations.
I know now that battles are won by Love, Humility, and
Compassion, even as campaigns continue on various
Fronts, in multiple theatres. Looking up, I remember that
Sputnik long ago beeped its last in space, and the
Eternal Kennedy flame
Still burns in Arlington, not far from Olde Towne and The Bird;
Just down the road from the headquarters of
The American Nazi Party.

We are where we are in time and space; in sight
When the clocks chime – an appointed place.
Made reverent or numb by what happens.
Cycling or jogging along; sometimes stopped in our tracks
By a targeted shot, or a redemptive thought.
Watching a flock of ducks in flight.

Not Fade Away ?

She's dropping down his Inbox,
And her voicemails ? Fading, sure.
But worst of all this slippage
Are his memories of her.

He's blocked her face on Facebook
And her postcards have been burned,
As he's grasping for remembrance
Of the way his heart she turned.

They've got no friends in common
So no shoulder will be stained
By the tears of someone's sorrow ;
Of a breakup unexplained.

He assumes this is his swan song,
Though she'll never hear the tune.
There's just silence, pain, and wondering,
And a blank, impassive moon.

Dear, Sweet, Ailing England

You are my hostess, not my home ;
Away from you I like to roam.
Agreed – a green and pleasant land,
But not if homes are built on sand.

Your gates swung open ! – In we came
Like Irish to the Statue’s flame.
But now your stature’s sinking fast ;
Your glory days comprise the past.

“Tired of London / Tired of life”,
But glad was I to leave that strife
And hurry to these village hills,
Away from concrete’s subtle ills.

Until I realized : near this scene
Are multiples of Milton Keyne.
The soul-less housing (cursed “estates”)
Which, like disease, proliferates.

I’m in a siege, surrounded by
Developers who have an eye
To eat the hills and drink the streams ;
Devouring Britannia’s dreams.

From an Alternative Burns Night

There once was a haggis from Wick,
Which made people horribly sick.
It was filled with the guts
Of a pair of dead mutts,
And a sauce from a rancid oil slick.

The Epicure

He stuffs himself fat,
And drinks himself stupid;
He smokes every last friggin' fag in the pack.
And his heart's a fine organ,
But it ain't playin' Cupid
(Though his ticker is dodgy,
It has always come back.)

He drinks himself fat,
And eats himself stupid;
He gnaws every last friggin' bone in the freezer.
Though the odds are he'll last
Just a year, he'll bet two, bid
The house on a nice, happy life -
Drink a Breezer.

'All You Can Eat' is a challenge he'll take;
He will gorge till he's gagged,
And he'll swill till he's slewed.
In the morgue where he lies,
His big toe has been tagged.
And his friends raise a toast to him:
'One happy dude !'

The Widows of Longville

There are four widows on my street;
I fear them when they daily meet
To chat about 'who might be next.'
My cry for help ? I send a text.

Their men expired without a fuss,
Back when our street was known as 'Us'.
Those couples seemed so nicely matched !
But now each dame's alone - detached.

Old Johnson's heart was poorly wired,
And Baker ? Well, he just got tired.
MacGregor's lungs filled with 'Big C',
And Pollard's tractor hit a tree.

And me ? Good health, but can't be smug ;
My dame may find some poison drug !
Then join the four for daily chats,
While we dead boys feed graveyard rats.