The Chess Game

You pull out the board, your partner agrees
To play you some chess in the park among trees
The game begins betwixt Johnny and Clair
As their friends gather 'round and stare

Clair moves up her horse, and Johnny his Queen
But she's hid a bishop where Johnny's not seen
She takes out his Queen and puts him check
Extending a sword right up to his neck

He takes out the piece with a pawn nearby
A trade well worth it without asking why
But Johnny reacts and checks her back!
He's bold and his courage still does not lack

She moves out' the way, he preforms a King's castle
--Now checking that King will sure be a hassle
"The game lasts forever", everyone agrees
Betwixt Johnny and Clair in the park among trees

But the game continues toward the dawn
As 4 pawns a horse and 2 rooks are all gone.
The game goes on and gets closer still
It sends through the crowd, an ominous chill

Johnny is good, he could still win the game
As 8 lone pieces ghastly remain
Johnny makes his move and goes for the win
But Clair sees what he's doing and it might be a sin

As she moves her Queen far, and he takes the bait!
She moves her rook down and smiles, "Check Mate"
He puts a hand on her back, and gives her a pat
For he did not think he'd be beaten like that

But they return their pieces back to their place
When Johnny moves up his pawn one space
We all play a game, and it causes strife
I speak of the game we all know as life.

But during this game, when no hopes remain
It's important to smile and say, "Good game"
For luck will turn, for good is the Lord,
Just pick up the pieces and reset the board.

I like it, and if it is truly your work, then, good job

That's awesome if you wrote it yourself

Very nice!

theres good potential,
some criticism i might offer cud have to do with how certain elements of the poem conflict with what seems is ur purpose

the end portion is linguistically evocative of the christian elegy but the tone of your piece is not about loss and fortitude,
but just fortitude by itself. i think you are missing a stanza to make a better (more poetic) connection between chess and life.
the elegy uses loss. thats prety powerful. give us a reason why we shud say good game. cos there is a god isnt good enuf.

if you read this out loud to yourself, you should be able to spot out all the metric errors. u probly dont care but besides just being correct,
it sounds smoother. poems of course dont need to "sound" smooth, but the repitition u use suggests this is a lyric, or meant to be heard in some way.

overall, good work. im bad at keeping a narration and using simple allegories.

i like it badly!~~

its just supposed to flow in an up down meter, i have read it out loud and i think it flows rather nicely. what part do you think doesn't flow this way?
i actually considered added an extra stanza in the middle of the last, but i decided id rather it end that very specific way. i wanted it to end rather abruptly so it keeps the audience thinking. although its not supposed to be "just cus theres a god" it was supposed to just be life wont always be bad. i try to throw in a little religious reference in most, if not all of my poems.
im not really sure what linguistically evocative means, but i didn't want to spell out the connection for the audience, i wanted to resemble a more underlying theme of the poem.
i started it out in a manner that is completly independant of the ending, and worked it in as the poem goes on.
by the end of the poem, this is the messege i wished to convey: in chess, like life, there are choices that are either good or bad, and even when you think youre doing great, life throws a 180 and goes bad (when johnny loses his game) but he doesn't let it bother him, he works through it, and resets the board because he knows it will get better, and is ready to play again in a good attitude.
thanks for the input

This post was edited by Kamikizzle on Sep 4 2008 05:23pm

k ill be frank. its too simple. there is nothing u have to spell out. the allegory is not only simple, u make overkill connections, if u were going for any degree of ambiguation, u failed
i like wordsworth's definition of poetry. an overflow of emotion.
the emotion here is weak. u need to pair it to something. look up wat an elegy is. that shit will move u. learn from it. learn to move people, dont lecture.

linguistically evocative = the language suggests that..

as far as meter goes, there are different ways of creating pleasant sound,
but wat i was referring to is your inconsistent stressing.
you dont need to care about "the way it sounds" but u say u think it sounds smooth, and that is wrong.
to you, it sounds like this and that, but it is offbeat to the general reader who doesnt hear this read by the poet.
a didactic piece like this naturally uses conventional rhythm and its something u shud practice anyway

The ending is great.
Good work man

damn dude, that is really good.
great use of vocabulary!
nowadays, you don't see that very often...