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Said the Pawn, ‘Your high-and-mightiness, permit me just to say
That I’m grovellingly grateful for the crumbs you toss my way.
It’s an honour quite unlooked-for that you give me time of day.’
‘My nobility and sanctity are more than you can know,’
Said the Bishop, swooping slantwise up and down and to and fro,
‘I could crush you in an instant but instead I let you go.’
‘Your magnanimous example is a comfort to my soul,’
Said the Pawn, ‘as I endeavour to fulfil my humble role,
And I dodder like a plodder ever nearer to my goal.’
‘It is proper,’ said the Bishop, ‘to maintain in their estate
Both the rich man in his castle and the poor man at the gate.’
But the Pawn was now the Queen (the Bishop noticed far too late).
And she chased him and erased him and she give his King CHECKMATE.
John Whitworth
Said the Knight to the Pawn, ‘Don’t you find it a yawn
To proceed up the board with such care,
On your one narrow track, without once looking back
And your range of precisely one square?
So much duller than I, who can swerve, who can fly,
Who can ghost on the enemy’s shoulder,
And when all’s said and done, you’d have buckets more fun
If you’d only contrive to be bolder.’
Said the Pawn to the Knight, ‘Your approach is too trite,
I’m the roundhead to your cavalier.
You’re the fox, the cool cat who can do this and that;
I’m the hedgehog with one Big Idea.
What I know from the start, and keep chanting by heart,
Is “Five steps and I’m Queen”. That’s the plan,
So I make stealthy ground while you’re prancing around,
Often ending up where you began.’
Noel Petty
As the Bishop said to the Rook,
‘There are only two moves in my book:
A diagonal flight to the left or the right
With the aid of my clerical crook.’
‘Not so!’ said the Rook in defence,
‘I’ll wager you seventy pence,
That “up or across”, not to argue the toss,
Are the only two moves that make sense.’
Said the Bishop, ‘It’s patently plain
Such tactics might grant a small gain.’
But a move, rather deft, a diagonal left,
Saw the Bishop backtracking again.
Quite clearly the two were elated
As each one the other berated,
But what made them sing was that only the King
And not either of them could be mated.
Alan Millard
‘I didn’t choose to be black, you know,’ said the black Pawn to the white Pawn. ‘And furthermore you white pieces have a head start. I would say that was unfair.’ The white Pawn pondered this for a moment and then replied, ‘Someone or something has to go first, you know. I mean take songs, for example.’
‘Songs? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Well, when someone composes a song, what do you think comes first, the words or the melody?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘So there you have it!’ The white Pawn grinned triumphantly.
Adam Campbell
‘I am Castle.’
‘Why?’ asked the Bishop.
‘Because I’m crenellated,’ came the reply.
‘That’s a long word,’ commented the Bishop.
‘It’s the same as battlement but it has one more letter. It means the same thing,’ the Castle explained. ‘Nonsense!’ retorted the Bishop. ‘Words cannot mean. They can only spell. You may as well say a word can average.’
‘Some words can. They add themselves up and divide themselves and get their mean, which is the same thing.’ He paused. ‘Your head has been mitred.’
‘Correct,’ said the Bishop. ‘It has been joined at 45 degrees. Therefore I can move diagonally. You can only go straight.’
‘I can castle with a king …’
‘But I can crown one,’ boasted the Bishop.
Sid Field
No. 2452: A good innings
You are invited to write an elegy (maximum 16 lines) on the recent death, in Queensland, Australia, of a 176-year-old tortoise called Harriet, who had met Charles Darwin in the Galapagos Islands and was for most of her life wrongly thought to be male. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2452’ by 13 July.
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