lester

connected meanderings
2008-02-12 16:02:00 (UTC)

Poem: Chess Report

Chess Report on the Telephone

He called on a Sunday night to tell triumphantly of his
tournament
Of chess. I returned his call; we seldom speak this way.
But when he visits yearly here, or I twice yearly there, we
Interact intensely, focused when here on backyard clay,
Making free form ceramics, or on chess – especially chess,
I’d say.

So to report a third place finish
Seemed reasonable enough; I listened with attention
To details, feeling pleased that now he develops
His bishops and his knights before the queen or rooks
(Something always resisted when before we’ve played –
Curiously today he gave me credit. And I’ve admitted
That he’d each time gotten better so I’d take longer
To regain my touch, to resume whatever prowess I possess.)

I asked if the tournament had been just now, perhaps
Friday, but no,
It’d been two weeks ago, late last month. And then my
caller told me,
“There’s this girl on the bus, I think I have a crush on
her,”
And it turns out how her father had just now died
At 45 years of age, sudden, not ill before,
Heart, my caller guessed, all cried, his wake filled up
the street.
His teacher wept the entire period at her desk;
The class had done no work.
She’d known that father since both were seven years in
age.

“Yeah, and someone else’s granddad, or great granddad had
passed.”
“But hey, let’s return to chess,
“I’ve this opening from Fischer. And hey, it works.”
He told a detail he’d read it in Bobby Fischer’s games
of ‘72.
“When Bobby’d beat that Russian dude.”
I excitedly remembered: “In Iceland, yeah.”
And Spassky was the Russian. I’d listened move by move
On the radio when I too, before, had lived in Jersey
state.
My caller told me, “oh, and Bobby Fischer’s dead now too,
you know!”
I did; and then he had to go, my caller, to do his evening
chores:
Only 30 minutes left to get them finally done.

2/11/08




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