The game

At first it resembled chess. I took my turns,

replying to each move, exchanging material,

but slowly the game extended, the intensity attenuated:

pieces were mysteriously being replaced to prevent

the onset of endgame, and gradually I realised

the rules were changing. There was a lack of urgency

and a proliferation of distraction. I was not paying attention

when I lost the advantage. Refocussing, I realised

the rules were changing faster than I had thought.

It was becoming difficult to keep up, and so

I started introducing my own changes, to take control.

It worked for a while, but eventually the rules changed

at every turn, and then faster, and the game moved beyond

simple procedures, to an emotional joust,

the contest governed now only by how the move made us feel,

and still it accelerated, until at last I was undone,

unable to keep up, incapable of the necessary invention,

finally in check mate because of the poverty of my own imagination.