Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Get out the chess pieces and scatter them
across the checker board of your mind
the game is played on all sides, white
against black, and you can't have one without
the other

we can't get the reality of kings and queens
out of our perception of how things are
so we watch the game with some resignation
it's all in the moves within a certain parameter
there is only one possible outcome, checkmate

but while the pieces are still in motion
the possible movements are almost infinite
or at best, it appears this way to the players
while they are engaged in the possibilities
the appearance of so many possible moves
and gambits, gives the illusion of a reason
to play the game

perhaps the best reason is to keep the queen alive
as long as possible, so as to give the impression
that she is something worth fighting for
but even with the most advanced masters of chess
in the end one of them must lose, her to the best

or is it the worst, because at the end of the game
somebody has to pick up the pieces, the fallen pawns
and the others in better positions of power and affluence
but they all fall, or fail in the final move, to protect her
and then what does the winner of the contest do

go home and gloat over their victory, or plan for the next one
so the game never ends, there is always the next tournament
and the next, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, so in reality the game
never ends, and it is always ending, with the same hand, left
or right, laying the good or bad queen on her side, so sad

As always... I love your writing, Craig... here's a chess response but written 14 years ago. Sigh... Need to write a new one.

___________________
"Black Pawn to K10"
piece from my archives written in 2000

i am the white pawn
one square at a time
but it's a race i
cannot win,
she thought,
staring up the squares
and down the
rabbit hole
shrinking.

ok then,
chess it is, he smiled,
but i enjoy a challenge,
and she agreed
and he moved quickly,
black pawn to K10, then
wrote it down.

she looked at him
perplexed,
checking the table
for the maid's gloves
and a drink to
make her tall enough
to reach the board.

all serious chess games
are notated,
he informed her,
with a sly wink in the
shine of an eye
she wished she could
melt through.

and then she thought three
moves ahead,
staring at the 8x8 matrix
and all the possibilities
of threat
and capture
piqued.

i don't
understand
notation,
she said, grinning.
no, we don't need to
take notes.

the mad hatter smiled.
come here, my pawn,
he said with a twisted
cheshire grin.

mate in 5,
she said
as he crept
through the
keyhole.

doreen peri, 9/11/2000

That was written on my birthday almost 15 years ago.

No wonder the white rabbit is always late
Alice is too clever, for them to keep up.

You were born on 911? I'll always remember that now.

Btw, what happened to your other rabbit screen name? I wanted to search for some of your old poems and couldn't remember the whole handle. Can you tell me the entire rabbit screen name so I can search?

Here's another chess metaphor piece I wrote way back when (2002? something like that)

mate in one

i was playing chess with myself and i mated me,
white bishop angled diagonally. i couldn't see
three moves ahead like my father always advised.
but since i was playing
with myself masterbationally,
i wasn't surprised. i used the strategy
of a warlord. i sat on both sides
of the board staring myself down.
after i moved my black knight, i put up a fight
with the white queen. she can be mean
like me. she can move backwards
if she needs to or sideways or forward
but you can always see through
her intentions, intuitively.

chess is an invention much like life.
you have to keep playing.
it's a complicated challenge for all,
not just for the bourgeoisie.

i yawn from boredom frequently
but i always win when i play
with me.

my name was revolutionrabbit, when that woman i was messing around with,
or was massing with me recently(last year around Christmas) kicked my computer and broke it, I forgot my
pass word, when I had to buy another computer. I would like to retrieve that stuff too.
I was born on 9/11/50. But D.H. Lawrence was born on sept/11. so I'm in good company,
even if it was the most notorious date in recent history.

I haven't played chess in a very long time, I wanted to learn how to play Go, but never did.
And I remember my grandfather playing solitaire as a child. I never took that up. But solitaire
ends with the last four letters in Baudelaire's name, so maybe I should take it up.After all I am solitaire now. But I would cheat on myself, so where is the fun in that?

Aha! .... Sorry your computer got wrecked like that. Here ya go... 18 pages of them... all your poems (click this link):

V
http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/search.php? ... mit=Search

And.. if you want to use that screen name again, I can create a temporary password for you and send it to you by private message. (I can't retrieve the old password as it's encrypted)... but after you log in with the temporary one, you can go to the User Control Panel and change it to whatever you want.

Thanks... it's going to be good reading your old stuff!

I used to play both chess and Go! as a kid my dad taught us. GO is the only other game other than chess that's total skill, no luck involved. Great game! I haven't played either in a long time.

Solitaire, Baudelaire .... heh ... there's a poem in there somewhere.