The Great Chess Game Poem by Gert Strydom

Leading riders on black motorbikes swish past
with flashing red lights
over the crossing of Arabat street
where rows of lamp-poles
tower with golden round lights,
small black Powédas
with men of the Federal Security Service
follow short on their heels
before the bullet-proof Zil
that is big and black glides past.

men from the CIA in two black
American Chryslers
follow at a distance
while they make jokes
about the people in the Zil
who in their opinion
is on the way to a dacha
to enjoy bodily pleasure
with each other
and the two cars take an off ramp
to drive back to the American embassy
from where they did come.

In the background the big Kremlin palace fades away
with a building of which the golden domes gleam
while the small convoy
takes the ring road,
and the general does sit smiling backward,
the skirt of his young companion
does shift up to her lovely upper leg
and the glance in her dark-brown eyes
are dedicated to him,
(as a person would expect)
and yet somewhat amused.

The man suddenly smiles
as that although the people in the West think
that they had drawn the tooth of Russia
the chess game does go on,

submarines do still sneak through the depths of the ocean,
with their nuclear explosive heads aimed as previously
on New York, Washington, Los Angeles
and other cities of the American continent,
at cities in Europe
and even on the Southern point of Africa

with aircraft standing ready for a attack,
missiles of which other countries are unaware
and day after day
the game is set anew,
and the waiting does continue
that he would give the attack command.

The small convoy
leaves the highway,
disappears into a secret military base,
into a place where the end of the lives
of billions of people
could start within moments.

[Reference: A dacha is a Russian holiday home.]