Two Squares and a Mule

[ilovewomenandbeer]

The edit clarifies a few things and adds a few.  By the way, it's useful to just append your edited version(s) into the original post above previous version(s), with the previous labeled - so we can tell where each begins - and the codes (square bracket)pre verse(close bracket) and (square bracket)/(close bracket) at top and bottom of the old edit(s).  This lets readers and critics see the process of development when desired.

There are some themes or leitmotifs,  or just words frequently used, in the work - wood/pine/board and post(s), for example.  "Posts" is a little problematic because it can be verb or noun (he posts, they are tied to posts).  Although these themes are fine, you might consider varying the words or enhancing them - checkered board, posted lines, neck-bound coffle.

So, the suggestion would be greater variety of words:  the reader will supply his own images (cedar posts, hippopotamus-hide whip) but you can guide him to a desired vision.

I'm a little confused by the "kingless" mentions.  In chess there cannot, of course, be a kingless castling or check(mate).  So, the black side has no king (though  capitalizing "Knight" may be a hint).  There is, however, the (guy?) with the wooden whistle... which brings to mind the cut-mitered bishop piece.  Is he a straw boss, and what color?

Mystery and allusion are good.  And this is a story journey rather than recounting one historic life - it's in the dreamtime.  But you can make it darker as well as brighter by enhancing the vocabulary.

Hope that helps!

The wooden whistle is layered. It suggests a leader directing people with a whistle, like an overseer, but it also ties into the chess imagery since the pieces are wooden. A bishop piece even resembles a whistle with the slit in the top, so it subtly connects the whistle to the bishop/reverend symbolism later in the poem.

I know that in actual chess you can’t have castling or checkmate without a king. The “kingless” phrasing is intentional. The idea is that the pawn loses even though there isn’t really a king or anyone acting as a just authority. The system still moves and punishes him anyway, so the game ends in checkmate even though the king is absent or irrelevant.
The title and opening hint that the game was rigged from the start too. “Two Squares and a Mule” is like the promise of “forty acres and a mule,” but reduced. In chess a pawn’s first move is two squares, so the pawn’s “reward” is really just a basic move he was always allowed to make. It’s really just the minimum the game already permits. So from the beginning the pawn is told he’s gained something, but the board was already set against him.

Maybe i can do a better job at making some of those allusions apparent as the longer the poem and the more i allude the easer it is for a reader to get lost.
Additionally I tried making the story more linear by creating the scene of them getting captured then being sold the two pawns being husband and wife and the brother being the knight.