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I live in a shoe box
which unhousels me
at wake, and squeezes me at sleep.

In dreams the seams
of the enclave push
further, each time,
to rise droopy eyed
to a reality more distant
than my coffee cup
in its unseated resting
place beside the computer.

My shoe box swells
with Shakespeare, vitamin C,
politics of some Russian, Libyan,
or Banana Replican.
Hair brush meets Pavarotti,
tooth paste leans against Mtukudzi
Air freshener on top of Dunhill
as faded blazers sport old boy ties
of a bigger legacy, I now have no part of.
Thank God for that.

Four diaries, half finished plays,
and dozens of chess books,
make Pandora blush
from this box.

At times, in this bookwormed
eighth of an octagonal whole,
I, like the wriggling leg of a
chess Knight, check the window
sill.

I am still by the window. Standing.

My bed takes up a third of the eighth,
the main feature of the shoe. Here
life lies flat, the sole flatterer
of a flatter/deflated poet who fattens
on the feet of words,
a tick with an ideas fetish
that paws at a four walled
prism from the kennel
of a prison
that corrugates green trees
outside,
interrogates lean ears
on the wayside-
a half baked asylum
where multiple voices
whisper and shout split
hemispheres of crashed
stock exchanges, rigged elections,
and of a coconut with the middle name
Hussein who will lead the US
past the Klan into the Barrack
of Luther's kingdom
without Martin or Thabo,
even though they all secretly
attend the same church
that blame
whites for inventing HIV.


Derranged dangled outside my window
like Damocles did yesterday.
Sometimes the fleyed carcas
of the Observatorian underbelly
comes drifting passed,
a hangman that speaks German
to collect his rent, along with his confidant
the American Pitbull
that bellows in Scrumpies its belligerent advice
to the drinks-sponsored East African
from Long Street
who still has the patience
to listen before bonking
in the back kitchen's staple feed of
drunken visa-exchange;
the requiste (coming-of-age)
exorcism of the African Myth.

Today, I will send a postcard to
the new president, reminding him
of the distant beauty of
a crying beloved country.
The letter will go :
“Dear you,
with love,
Home.”

horizontal messiah

Is there respite. Nails worn
sheets have lost their zeal
cotton fathoms its begnnings
the picker left years ago.

Phone curates images
of a painting that flowed
without ebbing.
A camera gimmick plays
last glance to mimic
your Yogic movement.

My bed has lost its metal
over years of daily
unlocking,
dismissing the gravity
of its oppressive inertia.

Risen from Golgotha's
horizontal messiah.

Dedication to Brail Chess

He felt his way through to mate
fingered her pieces, and squares,
finding the filled, and the vacant,
with dextrous relish.

Hands were eyes, and saw more
than prophets gazing
across the sea.

Kramnik vs Anand, Moskva meets the Ganges

Orders at Red Square
'no ash to the Ganges'
Moskva builds in flood
ready with reflectors
to outstare the outsider.

legend maintains, 'nothing escapes the Ganges'
its ebbing tide will await
your contribution
past eternity, if necessary.

Two rivers meet, and like oceans
in collision, the world watches.

In the Red Corner, the pragmatic praxis of Kremlin,
the Other corner, jogi genius improvised.
The Red is corner of past champions,
the Other is another of cast predictions.

Quakes from Kashmir shudder like prophets
the will of the Ganges,
From Sparrow Hills, the Kremlin seems
unshakeable...unbreakable.

Today Moskva meets the Ganges.
After dusk...
I saw an elephant rise up the Hill
like a big bird perched over its new
conquered horizon.

linares

It all begins here
whatever dream squares
were meant to imagine.

There are those that only speak
in Linares.
Mute everywhere else, except Linares.

Secrets are kept unravelled
unitl the journey leads to Linares.
Blisters are hidden till scars reign in
at Linares.

Words carry weight in Linares.
Threats carry the scent of the hunter
like Hannibal in his Punic war.

Listen carefully,
hear Manolete's 'suerte de matar'
in the bullring,
Bobby grimacing at his pocket set,
Garry finding light in murky waters,
Chucky making miracles,
Vishy storming kings on elephants.

The future is borne in Linares,
young lions ragged in combat.
For their first utterance
to the world, to shout on the
mountain that splits hemispheres.

A Viking has culled a Soothsayer
today. Tomorrow the Ganges
awaits fresh ash.

No stones go unturned in Linares.

In Linares, lies and hyprocisy
last a mere couple of moves.

Queen

Your departure from us
will be a return to you.
Your words of wisdom
become now our pulse.

Classrooms still see you
as do many great halls that
echo what has always meant
to be -a better world.
The one you made for us.

Your son will lead many sons
and we as fathers, will lead ours
through the vestiges of a mother's
blessing. Your blessing.

Our hands like yours will
continue to lay the bricks of
this home that reaches to
heaven, and roots in dignity.

Guide us still Queen,
to the vision that matches
your royalty.

Korchnoi

Ticked off the list of many lists
your lines still stick their searing mark
Across empty buildings, broken windows
a visage of squares, that burn.

You still turn
as did those nights
under the lights of an
eastern horizon,
still learn
as did those fights
under western skies.

The ways of dying in Leningrad
a tutorage of courage
as tanks honed in, and grandma
kept you in her heart
beneath smokey clouds
of a city under siege.

The city has never left you.

Ticked off a list of many lists
Like a pilgrim pacing through
destiny's misgiving secrets,
you found a path away from Pharaoh
to surge through barbed wire,
a hero.

In 64 squares, you discovered
the Elixir of Life,
and have like an Alchemist
found immortality.

I live a thousand lives in your games
more than any dream can conjure.

Thank you.

Kasparov

The sword of Damocles hangs.
Swaying in the wind from a
strand of hair. A reed
on a river bed, just before
the storm.

Know that we are that strand
that touches the handle of steel.
It is us, your friends who
suspend from the sky holding
the sword from its fall.

We struggle with you,
dangle the cliff with you
with every move you make,
every time you sway.

We are the thread that stops
the skies from lightning,
the string that will burn
when stars descend.

we have the power of 64 squares
on which you composed honour,
like music, and gave us a home.
One Of hope and dreams.

Even through the fire of lightning
we will not let you fall,
let Damocles hang,
let threaten his dreary gravity
down from the palace heights,
we shall not let you fall.

Do not stall dear friend
we will not stand to see you crawl.

SA Closed

12 Warriors entered the circle
3 will stay in the cube
The rest must die.

9 tombs will scatter
the terrain of 64 squares
Engraved, the names of sacrifice.

But unlike most wars,

there are no funerals here.
Flowers remain strewn everywhere.
Unlike most battles,prisons have no cells,
dungeons hold no chains.

The blood is spilt in the mind,
And in this cube, only the strong remain.

The Warrior of The Grey Zone
The Guru of Soweto,
The Pretorian Prince,
And a doctor who finds
solutions in the stars,
have gathered.

Aribters stalked the main stage
And the Bard found his way
on a table among trivial manuscripts.

It was a time when the young lions
faced initiation at the hands of the elders
and ragged-toothed, smelt the shores
of Dresden.

The Guru was laid low by a swing of Steel
The Greyzone was silenced into purgatory
A man from Springbok bullied on tops boards,
while luck ran out for the man of Gluck.

Later a Berg of Will departed, forced,
as death spoke of a pawn unpromoted.
Remain the mountain, my friend.
We await with arms open on e8,
humbled as we mourn.

The doctor is yet to return from the atmosphere.

Dresden will shudder
and smile,
when we say,
" A Cube has fallen from the stars
and out of its many values...
...we will finally become understood."

dawn has arrived in the central city

It took me 5 nights and 6 days
to discover Reason.

On the 7th i found the square.

The battles in the Central City have ceased.
This morning I found a poppy on the green lawn.

The soldiers have been chosen,
to fight another day, in another city.

With two friends, we captured the codes
wrote them on scrolls, and sold
in the citadel.

The greatest of Spartans came to read
and the power of their discovery
was handed don to the young ones,
who conquered 64 squares fearlessly.

My heart arrived bruised in the central city
and after hours I lost pictures of my shadows.

For days, i sought to recover the images,
while fire swept this stage.

A million hands have touched you my queen
as you move across horizons,
a thousand ears have listened to your orders
as you find diagnols to the stars.

it is here in the central city
it here where minds move mountains.

Bloemfontein holds our story.


Dawn has arrived in the central city
betrayal melts into waterfalls
crowns of kings, queens, bishops and knights
remain.