About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write. Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground. Kiya's gift. I love it!
Chess Players in Central Park
Nothing above except the sun
with articulate warmth
painting the park, the trees, the leaves, the pond,
and the choiceless pawns on stone-slab benches.

Faded men crowd into excitement;
their paths crossed in exile, retired,
fathoming a move straight ahead,
in files or diagonals,
shaping their last breath.

Game pieces sliding on concrete tables,
re-cementing checkered lives
with silver-white tactics,
cantankerous grins,
and hierarchy's strategy.

Gasping, almost there, once the knight
jumps over the rook.
The other king's blocked
by his own pawns,
both bishops sliding aslant,
that coquettish queen flirting everywhere;
there will be no castling today.

Checkmate, only two syllables,
yet powerful enough
to postpone the morning news.
Surface tension suspended upon camaraderie,
seeded or not, everyone's
Fisher and Spassky on the green;
for to win with a pawn conquers the everafter.


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