David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Bobby Fischer Goes to War (Faber, London, 2004), p.270

With random chess each game (read war) is different from any other war (read game) in history.

I mean, more different -- Jesus, with conventional rules it's new too, but how you have to study!

This way, out go the boring old openings, the chess-books can all (thank the Lord) be torched.

But you can nonetheless be sure of freedom's triumph if you possess, my friends, the seventeenth piece.

The seventeenth piece doesn't show on the board, but boy, hasn't she just the sexiest global reach!

Some folks call her 'Father' but to me she's like my Mom: never ever lets me down.

The other guys -- the black ones, if you assume you're white, as I do -- may think, hey,

We've got her too. But they can't have got her, because there's only one, and she's mine.

I can't exactly tell you how she moves, because she's invisible, even to me; but she leads,

Kind of co-ordinates all your other pieces, lets you do anything: you can slaughter, you can torture,

You can make the other side's pawns form a naked, helpless pile; you can, as it were,

Put hoods over the heads of their strongest pieces, so they don't know what's coming to them;

You can take any one of those bastards, strip him, taunt him, drag him like a dog,

If that's what it takes to stop mass-casualty dangers, because our best defense is a good offense.

What, you may wonder, friends, if none of that works, and the game -- for now -- is lost?

Well, I guess you can always go back to the rules. And if the other guys don't?

Doesn't matter. Our responsibility to history is already clear. The seventeenth piece will win. That's her beauty.

With acknowledgement to the National Security Policy of the United States, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/wh/15434.htm

William Radice teaches at School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London. He is a well-known translator of Tagore's poems.

This City
Shamsur Rahman (translated by Sonia Amin)

This city holds out its palm to tourists for a few copper coins

This city wears a patched shirt, hobbles on a crippled leg.

This city goes to the races, swills country liquor, then in the shade

stretches out its legs to pluck lice from its soul, brush off mite.

It picks pockets, and on spying a policeman,

makes a run for it. Looking all around with fresh-moon eyes,

this city mutters nonsense under its breath, rants hymns,

sings full-throated, sweats in factories.

Dreams now and then about a swing,

and watches on the verandah a slender beauty silently standing.

This city burning under a Jaistha sun, soaking in Sraban rain pulls

the heavy cart down the street. When night falls, suddenly desires

to celebrate its body, and rushes off to the familiar brothel.

This city in a white hospital ward turns

restlessly from side to side, lies in syphilitic agony on beds,

bangs on the doors of holy men, and on its arms and necks

hangs talismans and amulets, vomits blood day and night,

this city never tires of the ceaseless flow of corpses.

This city in desperation tears at its hair, slams its head

against the prison walls,

this city rolls in the dust knowing desolate hunger.

This city throngs the Paltan maidan, blends into a poster on the wall,

assumes the pose in an El Greco painting to gaze at the sky.

This city battles the jackal in its many forms every day.