The King's Gambit

From Lake Shore Drive, I strived, I dived–I felt alive.

Just a little Black boy on the South Side. 

I wrote this when I was sixteen–still counting, 

By fours my father introduced me to the chessboard

From there, I soared, explored the beauties of war. 

At first, a strange game–aiming to arrange change. 

But it was more. Much more.

When pushing a pawn forward, one concedes some safety–

You open by giving something up.

Each piece bore a soul.

And every move manifested metaphors of my melanated mind–

Only under my black eyes did they gain such beauty.
For I am their Beholder; the sable hand that moves them,

Commanding the bloody battlefield like Ulysses S. Grant.

If the pawn survives, they call it brilliant. 

If it dies, they call it theory.

Either way, it never comes back.

If I were to fall, my ruby red soldiers would return to black, 

Stripped of the Glory–

acted by a Freeman.

Huey nights–walking shadows towards the light,

Fighting wrong with half-made right.

Might leave me dead, 

Mercy to the night.

Akin to Kurtz, who entered pure but strayed;

Prey to the darkness that persuades.

The game is won, my enemy is done.

But what’s the distance between shadow and sun?

For power gained by my sable command, 

Is weighed against the unblemished Hand.