Lewis Chess Knight Replica, by Mark Wilson

Lewis Chess Men: Knight, British Museum. Probably made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200. Found on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. photo by Rob Roy, 2005. CC BY 2.0

Lewis Chess Knight Replica
(in memory of James Wilson & Robert Chapman)

1.
Lewis Chess Knight replica
from the British Museum:
belligerent & comedic, sat
astride his miniature steed.

2.
Far more than souvenir,
more a talisman & amulet
of our secret brotherhood.

3.
Objet d’art, clown-piece,
he perches on my bookcase
scowling at the imagined
enemy hordes. Absurd
Hebridean fixed in quixotic
preoccupation. What quest
electrifies him? Holds his
body tense, his sword raised
horizontal & rapidly
heating? He’s a relic from
Old Albion, a denizen
of our childhood kingdom,
holding onto the reins
for dear life, his horse
paler than whalebone-ivory.

4.
Caricature of tragi-
comic characterisation,
a fossil of our misplaced
imaginations, this warrior’s
poised erect to do battle on
the field of Armageddon. Yes,
he’s a spitting image of the
figurines we used to mould
as kids out of modelling clay.
Underdog-heroes caught in end-
game scenarios of pallid jades
& perpetual checkmates. Here
cometh our White Knight:
glorious, yet vitriolic in
every soul-flaying defeat.

5.
See, he casts an ironical
eye on life, & on death,
& on everything in between.
Nothing, absolutely nothing
dares to pass him by.

Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson has previously published four poetry collections: Quartet For the End of Time (Editions du Zaporogue, 2011), Passio (Editions du Zaporogue, 2013), The Angel of History (Leaky Boot Press, 2013) and Illuminations (Leaky Boot Press, 2016). He is also the author of a verse-drama, One Eucalyptus Seed, about the arrest and incarceration of Ezra Pound after World War Two. His poems and articles have appeared in: The Black Herald, The Shop, 3:AM Magazine, International Times, The Fiend, Epignosis Quarterly, Dodging the Rain, The Ekphrastic Review and Le Zaporogue.