Knight to Forget

Via Twitter our attention was brought to a chess poem, published on February 21st, 2012 at strange bOUnce. In their own words, this site "a 'strange’ brew of fiction, satire and verse, with a dash of sport, all coming from a group of writers who want to bOUnce to a different beat".

By Roger Slater

Pawn to E4,
White opens the game,
A pressuring foray
For this final frame.
Pawn to E5,
We see black respond.
Seems a solid defence,
But this wont take long.

Knight to F3,
That’s me on the way,
Forcing his hand,
Pressuring the play.
Knight to C6,
Black covers the threat,
But he’s chasing us ‘round,
There’s no escape yet.

Bishop to C4,
Really threatening now,
Laying out our stall;
Victory our vow.
Bishop to C5,
He wants to break through,
But our game plan is set,
Does he know that, too?

Knight to C3,
We’ve set up our sting,
Like boxers, like fighters,
We circle the ring.
Knight to F6,
He’s offered a trade:
Knight for knight, stalemate,
Our decision is made.

Knight to G5,
We won’t change the plan.
Setting up the invasion,
We target The Man.
Knight to E4,
We warhorses split,
He’s gobbling up scraps,
But no target to hit!

Knight to F7,
I break through his line,
His Queen there to cover,
But his rook will be mine.
Queen to F6,
A counter attack,
But surely, he’s ours?
We’re strong at the back!

Knight to H8,
His first piece to me,
But there’s no sign of pressure,
What on earth can he see?
Queen to F2,
Oh. Bollocks. Checkmate.
Did not see that coming,
And now it’s too late

Knight to Forget by Roger Slater is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.