The Chess Playing Dwarf

There sits a man, short in size
Who plays his game
Of Kings and Queens
At the coffee house

There stands a man, behind the counter
Who serves his scents
Of decaf and muffins
Who watches the dwarf

There floats the air, invisible
The dwarf stares back
At the blank board
No one ever plays him

There stood contenders, ages past
Foolhardy, they played
Confident of their victory
Deaf to His warnings

The Harbinger sat, He played
He warned them
They laughed
They played the dwarf

The pawn moves out
The move is copied
The dwarf’s eyes flicker

To the man behind the counter
Who hurriedly returns
To his muffins and decaf

The bishop flies out
Holy and righteous
He points at the king

Check

Un-phased, the challenger
Blocks with his knight
The bishop shrugs with the dwarf

The game trudges with the clock
Tick, move, tock, take
The dwarf whispers



He knows, yet they refuse
To believe; but they know
This is no longer chess

The castle rears its judgment
The dwarf keeps warning them,
About the lies they live

The dwarf glances at the board
He glances at the challenger
He glances at the decaf man

He whispers a warning
One final chance
To run home

To fix and forget

But the brave man refuses!
He laughs in His face
The dwarf doesn’t falter…

The dwarf queen attacks!

Pointed silver

Man falls in the water…

Checkmate

I like the concept... chess is a cool topic.

A few notes:

Who serves his scents
Of decaf and muffins

This isn't *bad* but when you say "his scents" I think of body odor. Better to just say "serves up the scents.." or something like that.

There floats the air, invisible

this comes across as somewhat awkward. I like the thought, but doesn't air always float invisibly?

There's a bit too much repetition throughout, such as your second use of "muffins and decaf" I'm sure there are other things to be had in a coffee shop, right?

Also, I feel like the line breaks cut off the flow of things; the poem would be ten times better if you let some of the sentences take their course without a line break just for the sake of form.

Really, I do like what this could be, it just needs a tweak here or there. =)

Hm, I liked this I think, although I believe you could've made it a little more poetic. I don't mean in the sense of adding rhymes to it, I just think that the flow of it all was pretty boring and just made it seem like you were reading a commentary.

I like how you have set out the first lines of each stanza for the first four stanzas, but then as this continues through the poem, it does become to seem quite forced.

"The dwarf glances at the board
He glances at the challenger
He glances at the decaf man"

The repititon in this stanza brings me back to how I thought it sounded more like a commentary. You need to drop at least on of these glances, or just drop them all and re-write these three lines. I know you could perhaps argue that it could be like a commentary because it is a game; chess, but it's still a poem and it's always nice to make it intresting to read.

Also, you seem to be lacking puntuation. I'd give you pointers on this, but I have to say it is also my weak point, so try and get someone to advise you on how you could place and use punctuation through the poem.

Happy writing!

Having enjoyed your poem about Drew Morrison, I thought I'd check out your other work. I liked this poem a lot less, unfortunately, though the style of yours that manages to fuse simplicity into poetry very uniquely is still distinct and unmistakable.

Touches I liked: 'There floats the air, invisible.' Interesting how you itemize everything, even something as dissipated and intangible as air. Also, I thought at first that you had mis-spelled 'unfazed', as is commonly done, but am I right in wondering if it's a deliberate pun on the term "phase" as pertains to chess strategy? Accidental or not (and probably not), it adds a clever and subtle touch to the poem.

Suggestions for improvement: Metre. Rhythm very much helps in telling a narrative poem. Many of the greatest narrative poems of all time have harnessed metre in compelling readers to listen to what they have to say. Rhythm and metre are, likely arguably, the ultimate differentials of poetry from prose. You start out beautifully here with:

moon_shifter143 wrote:There sits a man, short in size
Who plays his game
Of Kings and Queens
At the coffee house

There stands a man, behind the counter
Who serves his scents
Of decaf and muffins
Who watches the dwarf

I would probably re-arrange the second stanza somewhat, perhaps a bit like this:

There stands a man, behind the counter
Who watches the dwarf
And serves his scents
Of decaf and muffins

You might note that the syntax and rhythm of the stanza now more closely resemble that of the first. This adds a bardic quality to the poem that is very much suited to narrative poetry, and is an effect that requires minimal re-arrangement to achieve. The third stanza kind of broke it for me. You began it similarly, with 'There floats the air, invisible' -- as I said, I like that line, though using the word 'float' next to 'air' is a bit of a cliche to me -- but then proceed to break the rhythm and syntax, primarily but not solely due to the stressed syllables of 'stares', 'back', 'blank' and 'board'.

The first three stanzas were the most interesting to me because they demonstrated consistency, but that rather drizzled out to nothing as the poem, to me, seemed to run out of steam. Simplicity is a forte of yours, but being simple is not always the same as being ordinary or cliched, and lines like 'foolhardy, they played / confident of their victory / deaf to his warnings' are poetically lazy in my book. I would advise finding a more elegant and interesting way of saying these things. I didn't care so much for the rest of the piece as a result of much the same reason.

Lastly: I find the concept you explore here interesting, but I really want to know what was going on in your head as you wrote this. What were you trying to achieve? If this isn't chess, what is it? Why the setting? Do explain.

Cheers.

Once again Gaylegoh, your exact and extensive comments have helped me greatly and I would love to answer your questions.

1. Why the setting?
-Basically, its simple. I like that theme, very simple with something intense happening discreetly(sp?). My attention to the coffee-man is intentional, but not necessarily (sp?) important. It is mean't to remind the reader that this is your average every day scene. But the dwarf is different, so naturally he will bring something different to this simple, monotonous coffee shop.

2. What was I thinking?
-It's a big metaphor. As much as a dwarf playing chess in a coffee shop is appealing (atleast to me.) That is not the meaning of the poem. (Yes I know my meter is off, I wrote it quickly). The meaning is that even the most unlikely sources will save you. The dwarf isn't really playing chess, he listens. (Thus the line about no challengers, air, invinsible, etc.) He knows things, and he tries to warn certain people who have been marked to be killed.
Remember the line in which he warns the challenger, he laughs, then checkmate, pointed silver?
Basically, he is warning the man of his death, the man shirks him off, the checkmate is the end of the game, the pointed silver is the gun.

I don't like this as much either, but I am putting out a new one if your interested...

-moon_shifter143