PASSED PAWNS

by Dave Day

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "grave mistake" to invade Ukraine may yet foment popular or elite rebellion, Leonid Volkov, chief of staff of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has told Newsweek, as Moscow's offensive stalls and international sanctions bite.

Navalny’s pawn moved forward two,

While Putin scanned the board’s positions.

The Bishops dare not stage a coup,

To grovel slips them fat commissions.

 

The Knights are paid, their horses watered.

They follow oaths to wanton slaughter.

The oligarchs are faithful crooks,

And perfect stand-ins for the Rooks.

 

His Queen? Ukraine ran off with Europe.

Cuckold Putin, cuckold grief,

He Novichok’ed Navalny’s briefs.

But *hush-hush* Putin’s eyes, they welled up.

 

The game’s not lost, Kasparov wrote.

What happens when the Pawns promote?

Dave Day is an attorney from Honolulu, Hawaii, and is a numismatist who focuses on currency from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Dave has published poetry in The Ekphrastic Review and extremely nonpoetic articles in the Emory International Law Review and the Hawaii Bar Journal.

FOR HIS LEGACY

by Richard Matta

He lines up his army men

sacrifices them, 

with the enemy he alone creates 

because he wants to play

with toy soldiers on a big stage

like a kid who wants to shoot

his BB gun, toss his cherry bombs 

even the M80s

to gain everyone’s attention. 

He knows the stakes are higher today

there’s narrative to control. 

He instills fear in those who

would question the story he weaves. 

He reminds the world

a red button, his red button

is within reach.  

Keep them guessing, 

on their heels, asking themselves

is this a crazy man who’d destroy the world?

And this is how he plays the game

Constructed ambiguity

he figures he has to play the big threat, 

they’re thinking—long game in Ukraine

—sanctions will break Russia like the USSR

He figures they’ll try psych ops—

drones dropping rubles and letters,

pleas and podcasts in Russian

the oligarchs and their yachts

hiding on the seas with the country’s wealth

They’ll fill the airwaves with western propaganda

to twist the minds of Russian military 

and those with curiosity. 

But he knows all this. It’s narrative control. 

He vows to protect his people 

from the tyranny and pathological lies 

of capitalism and democracy. And who 

in their right mind will question

a boy with a BB gun and M80s 

who plays chess and might blow up the board

for his legacy.  

Richard Matta grew up in New York and  now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop,  The New Verse News, San Pedro River Review, Gyroscope, Healing Muse, and many international haiku journals. 

CHESS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

by Claire Matturro

We ran and jumped and bounced

over monkey bars in sandy school yards

then raced inside at the bell’s

shrill scream and covered our heads

as we crouched beneath wooden

desks that smelled of crayons and

fruit punch while outside

the open jalousie windows

cardinals and mockingbirds sang

their sweet wild songs

as soulless men hid

missiles in Cuban silos and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t worry

because we were seven

and our mothers stockpiled

food and juice in pantries

and our fathers turned

the TV low so not to wake us.

 

We ran and jumped and lobbed

volley balls in sandy school yards

and the slap of leather against

our hands made us laugh

while soulless men

tested nuclear bombs and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t care

because we were thirteen

and besides one of us had

a left-over bomb shelter

in her broad backyard where

we once played dolls and drank

canned juices from stockpiles

hidden behind concrete and steel.

 

I no longer run or jump and

the sandy school yard is silent

with pandemic and children gone

inside and the bomb shelter

long traded for a swimming pool

and its stockpiled juices tossed

into landfills yet soulless men still

play chess with the end of the world

as troops mass at borders and

the hurricane which will find

me in my glass house

breeds silently in melting ice

and the oil keeps flowing and

the coal keeps burning and

the missiles stockpiled in places

where children hide

their heads under thin arms

guarantee the collateral damage

we’ve learned to turn away from

as cardinals and mockingbirds

go quiet in the world outside my windows.

Claire Matturro has been a journalist, a lawyer, and a legal writing teacher at Florida State University and University of Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, including a legal thriller series published by HarperCollins, and is the co-author of a recent novel. She is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and lives in Florida.

MOVING THE QUEEN

by Tricia Knoll

All she wanted when she fled up
north was to keep her child and man --
she hummed her song all along.   
All she wanted from mother’s day
was for her son and another
mother’s boy let each other live.

All she wanted from her locked chain
on the White House fence was to vote 
for a man for President.
All she wanted from a wheelchair
rolling her body to the voter’s booth
was a death with dignity.

All she wants running for office
is to oust the jerks who tell her
to do more with less and love it.   
All she wants from her website
is for Muslim and Jewish women
to read each other’s poetry.

All she wants from a pink t-shirt
is to walk with womenfolk
who celebrate survival.
All she wants from bumper stickers
is for neighbors to know
she yearns to marry Isabelle.

All she wants to find online
is work that lets her feed her twins
more than macaroni and cheese.
All I want from holding the queen
is to slide her fleet-foot fury
to checkmate the cross-head king. 


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet. She never burned a bra but she walked in a Yale graduation in 1970 without one.