ALPHETA'S LITERARY AGORA

At My Simul One Evening
by Brian Wall
Dedicated to Ann Davies - Christmas, 2000)

At my simul one evening
Somewhere on Bristol Street
The rows of pawns facing me
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down in the skittles room
I heard a GM sing
Under his breath in a whisper,
"You must study the ending."

I'll study you, skewers, I'll study you
Till A and H files meet
And the knight jumps over the bishop
And kingpawns sing in the street.

I'll study till the chessboard
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the Enemy rooks go squawking
Like geese about the sky

The passed pawns shall run like rabbits
For in my arms I hold
Extra pieces to promote to
And the prettiest queen in the world.

But all the clocks at the mall
Interrupt combinations sublime
O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

In the burrows of the Hedgehog*
Where agoraphobia rules
White's allowed a pawn break
The Black Lady drools.

In headaches and in worry
The center leaks away
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.

Into many a 7th rank
Races a nascent crow**
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the player's brilliant combo.

O plunge your mind in backranks
In diagonals crossed and crissed
Stare, stare at the position
And wonder what you've missed.

The rooks rock in the box
The board lays on the bed
And the crack in the bishop opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

Where pawns turn out their pockets
And the Red -Queen haughtily exclaims,
'Down with naughty bishops
I can't even remember their names.

O look, look in your database
O look in your distress
Find your seven-move mate
Under the clock's duress."

O stand, stand by your position
As the tears scald and start
You shall love your ragged rook pawns
As to the eighth they dart.

It was late, late in the playing hall
The players they were gone
The clocks had ceased their ticking
But the post-mortem continued on.

---

A few notes on the peom:

*The Hedgehog is a cramped Black Defense where the pieces stay on the first three ranks.

**One time at the Denver mall, I had three connected passed pawns, plus one rook vs. two rooks. My mall opponents never know when to resign, so I show off a lot. As my pawns moved closer to promotion, I gave away my rook leaving me three pawns vs. two rooks. Bird lover Bill Hall was impressed and compared my three pawns to the three talons of a crow. Now, whenever I achieve three passed pawns my mall audience begins to yell, " Caw!, Caw! "