The Old Man's Chair

The Old Man's Chair

Long before father passed away

There was an oath he made us swear,

Which all his children did obey:

Never touch his favourite chair.

His pride and joy, wood and leather,

An armchair of no grand design.

Father, though, could have no better

Throne, no matter how rich and fine.

From this lofty seat of comfort

He'd play all comers games of chess;

Regardless how much strain of thought,

None could beat the skill he possessed.

His reading room was a legend;

A place where folk would bring their play

To claim the title he'd defend:

Champion of his own study.

Friends brought their friends as, mystified,

They could not tell why they did fail;

Why they always were so stymied,

Till even masters heard the tale

Of amateur without training

From any teacher they could name

Who could send off top boards shaming,

As if they could not play the game.

But one day my father called me,

Sensing his own approaching death,

And bade me from his oath be free.

He told me with his dying breath:

“The chair, my son, it's all the chair.

The piercing insight that I show

Is not without it being there;

Chess rudiments are all I know.”

Then father died; in his estate

He left to me his true treasure

With the hope that it would relate

To me some part of his pleasure.

I did not know, I must confess

What to make of my father's boon.

That this chair would improve my chess?

I admit I felt like a loon.

Yet sit I did, in chair now mine

But then I jumped back up in fright –

A foreign voice, soft and refined,

Had murmured greetings, firm and light.

I searched about, I looked behind,

But no presence could I discern;

Then sat again and in my mind

The voice instructed me to learn.

A ghost, I fathomed with a chill,

This thought the spirit then confirmed:

He lacked the body, not the will -

To play the game was all he yearned.

The partnership that he proposed,

As with my father, was in fact,

Only for when we both reposed

In this armchair; we made a pact.

So I set up my chequered board

And instantly gasped in surprise.

Across the surface patterns flowed;

The spirit showed me with his eyes.

Latent lines of force were bursting

Over the empty board laid there.

And more as I placed rook, queen, king:

Strategic swirls pulsed from the chair.

“Who are you, ghost, that has this sight?”

I asked of him in wonderment,

“You were no games-play neophyte,

But masterful prince of chessmen.”

“It's been so long, I know not now

What they called me when was alive.

All that matters is I with thou

Shall make sweet beauty for a while.”

Now all of that is long-past done;

Ghost and I have lived together

Some fifty years; they've come and gone

Framed in love for wood and leather.

Like father ere me, I've played all

Who visit us, with style and flair;

The three of us now rule this hall:

A ghost, me and this old man's chair.

Yeah...good :tup but misunderstanding  :nervous

næt.