American Archipelago

“When Red and Blue Meet” by Elise Palmigiani

 

stark arctic Aleutians
steamy tropical keys
mighty arms holding
liberty out to the world
as totalitarians seethe
at their fingertips
shivering sweltering
punishing remnants
of dead Marxist dogma
sustained by resentment
of personal enterprise
shouted across narrow
waters so close yet
so far mere proximity
helpless to overcome
doctrinaire minds

meanwhile here in
the heartland our
pluralist strengths
undergo a malicious
conversion to weakening
forces inflicting
diseases of deepened
divides between
free-hating factions
that threaten to leave
this exquisite geography
uglified chopped into
isles of intransigent
red and blue stains

 

 

From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol. 2)

Chessmen

“Heads of Chess” by Shellton Tremble

I learned the game
from a Cuban boy
near the copper-green
cast of Liberty’s robe

where his family
of chemists
fled ass over teakettle
north to escape

from Fidel’s
fatal handcuffs
the father now swept
iron shavings

from factory floors
so the son could
become engineer
and my tutor

their story was newer
but nonetheless
similar hearkening
to my own parents

who fled in an
earlier time
not from jailers but
abject privation

the boy taught me well
and to this very day
more than fifty years
hence when I

contemplate chessmen
I ask myself
what would
Antonio do

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

American Archipelago

2012 Election Map
By Wall Street Journal

stark arctic Aleutians
steamy tropical keys
mighty arms holding
liberty out to the world
as totalitarians seethe
at their fingertips
shivering sweltering
punishing remnants
of dead Marxist dogma
sustained by resentment
of personal enterprise
shouted across narrow
waters so close yet
so far mere proximity
helpless to overcome
doctrinaire minds

meanwhile here in
the heartland our
pluralist strengths
undergo a malicious
conversion to weakening
forces inflicting
diseases of deepened
divides between
free-hating factions
that threaten to leave
this exquisite geography
uglified chopped into
isles of intransigent
red and blue stains

Mozart of Chess

José Raúl Capablanca 1888-1942
Cuban Grandmaster & World Champion)

 

positional brilliance

maestro of queen with knight endgame

unequaled at speed