Pieces Poem By Paul Lake

The queen moves with unbounded liberty.
Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer,
A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry
Enters the family trade, an officer.
A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall,
Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn.
The king strolls past his garden’s rose-grown wall
To issue statements from the castle lawn.
Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants,
Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers,
Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness
Of all the horror of those empty squares.