Two Squares and a Mule

[dukealien]

Revised techniques from recent criticism although new to poetry I think its great let me know what i can do to improve 

Two Squares and a Mule

White moves first.

A rich hand reaches down,
cheating black with a bishop.

Black pawn, patient, claims his square—
two squares and a mule,
a humble start.

He finds solace as his shackles sway,
standing in line with his brothers.

The wooden leader blows his whistle.

The kingless castling comes
as white drives his herd forward.

Black Knight posts poised,
fearless against a mob.

The reverend’s pale rage takes many squares,
lands adjacent—
an evangelical threat.

The pawn stabs the angel—
bravely turning pale
as she faces the mob.

This time white does not reach or wait.

They turn pale.

Every piece crumbles.

Black groans—
his tightened chains
no longer bind him to a board   
as he’s led to the stage.

White takes a whip,
cracks the naked knight.

A fiery torch is raised.

As white prepares to sell,
clutching their breeches,
counting silver for value.

The mob.

Some wear horns, some wear cones—
but all are pale.

Black waits patiently,
watching the swaying flame—
its crimson glow lingers
like the painful, pale, raw runaway
on his neck.

The bold pawn is first.

His wife resists
as they rip the chains from her wrists.

The pale name their price
and haggle her lower—

lame, they say.

Sold.

A silent weep creeps down her face.

His brother—
tall as a tree,
swole as an ox,
the same marking burned on his neck.

Again they haggle.

The brother cries openly, unpoised—
pleading,
tears hastily rolling down his eyes.

White remarks:

“This ox is smart—
he can pull your wagons as a spare.
He may be two legs and two stubs,
but his nubs could be hooves
if you give him a pulley to trudge.”

Sold.

Again the last willing to lose
takes what he is owed
and claims.

The dark has come.

Now the mob is gone.

The seller sees the pawn
as an unworthy mouth to feed—

so he raises him to a tree.

As the pawn looks down
black becomes what he sees.

Checkmate
is all his darkness brings.

In basic critique, in the first few readings I had trouble keeping the different characters in mind and attached to assigned chess pieces or pawns.  Finally decided that the short stanzas can be read as images or vignettes, some in groups and some stand-alone, all with a common metaphor (chess and slavery).  For example, the title stanza ("Two squares and a mule") aligns the commonplace or slogan "forty acres and a mule" with a pawn's initial two-square move in chess.

It's an interesting way to look at slavery, and there are some striking images - "cheating black with a bishop,"  for example, aligns with the bishop's unusual diagonal move.  Stabbing the angel reminds me of Turner killing the woman with a sword in "The Confessions of Nat Turner."  There are probably other allusions I did not catch.

On the whole, I think the poem is effective in evoking aspects of slavery (specifically in the US, not Africa or other times and places where it was practiced).   The contrast with chess through the convention of black and white pieces is good:  in chess the two sides are equal in all respects and rules are unbreakable, whereas in slavery the rules are completely  unbalanced and disregarded where they might be to the slave's advantage.

Not sure how it could be improved while maintaining its impact.  The reader may be confused, reaching for the meaning or allusion, but that also conveys the confusion of a human being caught in the machinery of such a system.