By
Noel A. Ihebuzor
On an uneven chessboard, across
boundaries of squares, fading
lines almost erased by coarse rough moves
pawns lurch around in drunken
lounging leaps
To the beckon and rhythm of the imperious,
rooks regal in a flurry of frenzied
moves, cavort in wobbly diagonal swoops
the dance of hubris revs and raves,
in the dawning madness
sense swims poorly and eventually drowns
We sit and watch the king’s ungainly ambles
the queen’s sauntering about
all over and everywhere
in kinky dizzying circles and cycles
in spins like a dancer
possessed and guided by the moon
Voice hoarse with passion, she
chants the moon is mine
that star is yours
but the sun is mine, mine to have and hold
as I please
And in this maddening clamour
of screams and scrambles like from fevered dreams
all that emerges,
ugly like a noisy fart at prayers
is a fight for portions of a cake
we did not bake
but “reason” now belongs to treason
to the loud and the lewd
Pawns and persons move,
associations form and un-form,
permanence is fluid
fluidity, permanent
During this dance of pawns and rooks,
of crooks, new saints,
canonized in their halls of infamy
play new strains of strange chimes of fiefdom
suggestive of floating notes
from tunes of thiefdom
In these moves and countermoves
the loudest is always right
the cloak of might and night
threatens the light of truth
Soon the haze of a dawning evening
catches pawns, bishops, king, queen and knights
unawares, night soon blankets them,
while the stars above blink and wink
at the now dispersing crowd,
seduced and befuddled onlookers
still clutching the half full bowls of porridge
for which they sold their soles and souls
and pawned their very voices
Reflections 