Politician’s Lament

I got something the other day.
After a glass of x knows what
and four men had to haul the
logs out of the corner, we
all might say we got something—
But really, it was I, I got it.

It started when the king fell
over. "No way to play chess"
	I said,
		referring mostly to myself.
But I hadn't pushed him
and indeed not a single other
	game had finished,
	so they said. I saw a
	few pretty close to that
	viperously invisible path,
		which just grows .

That's why I thought, I'd go
chopping—chopping up growth and piling it somewhere to use later.
	someone writes redly in books about that sort of thing.

The leaves fell, big, while
	I chopped.

Soon kings slumped,
	their strong trunks
	chinked, their roots grappling
far underground, supporting
what wouldn't need support.

Or did the roots hold
Earth to its spacey sheets?

I stacked the logs for later
as I mentioned, in the corner, and propped myself
	at their base, unsure
who else had seen them;
so many.
I heard the kings whisper,
"That was someone else's
strategy."