Rook castle

 Rooks in the Ash tree

The tree is their castle

See them move their pieces

Across the green field of play

Surrounding the Magpie

Picking a fight

Pawn to the Bishop

Queen takes the knight

The Rooks are in their castle keep

Black figures move one way, grim-reap

picking and gleaning

All around white sheep

 

And swans in their thrones

Sitting like pearly kings and queens of the ditches

Who's seen their riches?

Not me,

Probably the crows know

And the Magpies steal them

And the Robins chortle

The wrens pip-pip in high pitched alarm

As farmers with pitch forks walk through the farm

 

Still the Rooks are in their castle

Building it with twigs

Collecting, forming parliaments

Of the Tories and the Whigs

Democracy is played out

Like the theory of chess

But in reality, it conforms less

To the rules than to wildness

Where it's all for one,

But in numbers they are strong

These Rooks, these crooks

In their Ash towers they scheme and plan

Their next move,

How can they capture the Queen? 

How can they move into new territories unseen?

Then all at once they will be on your windowsill