Challenge 57: photo 114: Phillip Marlowe: Chess

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Title: Chess
Fandom: Phillip Marlowe (Dashiell Hammett)
Length: 113
Rating: Gen
Challenge: 57, photo 114
Notes: Italian sonnet.
Summary: To relax, Marlowe likes to re-enact famous chess games.


I play alone, or not so much as play,
as recreate the famous games of old.
I set the battlefield. Let wars unfold.
I put my feet in nobler brogues that way.

No crooks. No fiends. No hard greed on display.
No dope. No kids to drag in from the cold.
No lies to bleed. No secrets better told.
Just eight by eight and play them as they lay.

An adversary ‘cross the board would be
a bother, a burden, a nuisance guest;
my chess isn’t bridge, far from neighborly.

The pieces move at history’s behest,
not mine. What cleverer minds saw, I see,
and in their wars and wisdom, I can rest.