Kings and Castles -
Everyone had a unique reason for playing the Game
as we find different means for surviving Life
until the proper seconds of Death come stomping by with insistence,
some want intellectual respect shown with agitation in the opponent's eyes,
others crave the anxiety of prognostication
like gladiators uncertain of how to strike,
people commence the battle because they have something to prove
as Bobby boldly reproved the Soviets
on their asinine assumptions of superiority,
regardless, all who touch the Board want desperately
to understand the Game,
it's rituals, it's spirits,
the possibilities alive & haunting the 64 squares,
to honestly provide a homage of mind to History and to invention,
as if the nature of Chess is a dream of God's,
a subconscious engineering of grappling wants & needs,
of fears & hopes, of bravado & caution,
32 weapons arranged handsomely for the express channeling
of the Divine creative compulsion of Providence itself,
geometry made grand & gallant,
a homicide for Honor performed in the pressure of an hour,
all skilled players realise at some point
that quality brinksmanship ascends over the voice of victory
and can be reduced to the amazing beauty
of integrating logical processes with artistic allure,
misdirection a linchpin of the Master's ancient algebra,
momentum the indispensible monarch of strategy,
without It One is dictated,
mating nets, positional play, tactical moves,
a temple devoted to timeing -
J.A.B.
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