Poetry and Painting are in stalemate.

Been playing chess in the park for years,
Painting with sweeping openings and faith in bishops,
Poetry posting as few moves as possible,
(over)protecting their pawns,

prefers the board in the shade of the gigantic tree
to Painting’s perch with widest view of
so many still moving lives.

If the tables are taken, they just wait,
sometimes they hold hands. Poetry pets the dogs.
They are always conspiring,

each intermittently staring across the park
then sketching and scrawling in notebooks.

Poetry says ghosts are the only ones who can claim
there’s money in melancholy verse.

Painting used to fuck with spirits and
they are past that now,
but they both know the rule is
demons move in all directions.

Neither interrupt each other except all the time,
a chaotic balance, says Painting, like a draw.