The Black Queen - Jan 19 2026

 

The Black Queen

Jan 19 2026

The all-powerful Queen.

And the cornered King

who must stop and rest

after just a single step,

a fat defenceless old man

hobbled by gout

and out-of-breath.

Whose cavalry is dead and castles breached,

and who will soon surrender

before heading to the guillotine.

There is no clemency

for defeated kings.

What ancient feminist

conspired to create such a subversive game?

The woman tasked with producing an heir

who instead commands the board,

while her doddering prince

is no more than a figurehead.

If you play chess

thinking one move ahead

you are certain to lose. 

But she has a plan,

an ambitious Queen

wit battle-ready men

well matched with their opposites. 

Her cannon-fodder pawns

head-to-head

across a checkered no-man’s land,

bishops whispering 

in the ear of the king,

and cavalry

agile as ever

positioned in their squares.

The power behind the throne

in black from head to toe

gazes steely-eyed

across the board,

sizing up in the white king

who is clearly a pretender

as hollow as hers.

A weak man

and syphilitic cad

with his own white queen

as conniving as she is. 

Two patient queens

who protect their kings

but play the long game well.

They are ambush predators,

like a lioness 

who goes in for the kill

when the odds favour her;

when the soft underbelly 

of her unsuspecting prey

is exposed,

the delicate neck

is close enough

to crush in her merciless jaws.

I was reading an article (one of many — too many!) about Trump’s incoherent and self-defeating foreign policy, describing how he thinks only one move ahead:  perhaps enough to win in checkers, but a sure way to lose every time in chess.

Which led to something I’ve always wondered about chess: why, in an ancient game that comes from a time of patriarchal culture, primogeniture, divine right, and male supremacy, did they create an all-powerful Queen and relatively helpless King? From where could this contemporary feminist sensibility have possibly come? A thought which, in turn, led to a silly poem about chess. 

Silly, yes; but silliness is always good in demoralizing times like the present. 

(My original working title was Regicide. Maybe I should have kept it and saved this one for the day I write a poem about a gay African American.)

(Btw, this is how lions prefer to kill. They ambush their prey (they have competitive speed and agility, but not the endurance to pursue), then crush the windpipe in their jaws and hang on until the animal asphyxiates. It’s untrue that male lions don’t hunt. But my understanding is that it’s partially true in that females do hunt more.)