Chess In The Universe Poem by Kevin Scanlon

The universe once had a symmetrical opening array of forces much like the symmetry
Of the original position in chess before the first pawn is pushed and then it exploded,
Hurling pieces of matter and energy across-the-board of spacetime (which science
Has finally found out is flat) , and the simple symmetry was lost while complex entropy
Increased like a messy chess middlegame where tactics rule, sadly poor antimatter
Lost out early in this cosmic zero-sum game with its hidden quantum patterns that we
Struggle to recognize, so unlike the perfectly visible patterns of chess pieces.

In the endgame, the so-called 'heat death' of the universe billions of years from now
Nothing will matter, life will be checkmated just as surely as an implacable
Rook exploits a weak back rank to mate a king.