Reykjavik

.
a chessboard at the Tranzit Art Café, on
the arm of a red sofa, opened up to me
like the crypt. figures inside revealing at a quick
glance, what years and years had tried to hide: reflected triangles
of the upper windowpanes mirrored on
the backgammon board that Burzoe
had unleashed in Persia, where the Raja played
against him, lost, then taught him chess, then won,

great iconic defeats and victories in
one set, one twofold interchangeable frame
of mind: 32 pieces black and white, or the two kings
playing their 30 subjects at a game of nard.

the great Sun Mithra, past its peak
hides in the winter mist of moist, soft light, and cloudy street
lighting yellows softly over faint gray hues
of looming project blocks subdued, as the dice choose
which game it is to be then: that of order
or of random chance. the mind of ivory
or teak.

a pine paints
a faint shadow on the windowglass.

***

the crypt receives a master, a great Sun, one
returning home at 64 as old as sum
all figures on both sides, and then times two: too young.
(parallels to Pound: both exiles, and
both ranting scourges of the U.S. and the Jews
on radio broadcast backwaters of European news.)