Chess With Lives

To the fat cats,
In their heinous smoking rooms,
Life and the world are games of chess,
They are kings and queens in boardrooms,
While the bishops are no more than shills,
Preaching their version of the rules,

On this globular chessboard,
We are all teak pawns,
Serfs to faceless chess masters,
The knights have already routed,
The rooks already crumbled to dust,
Mere vestiges of fair play,

We are thrown at each other with abandon,
Smashed into atoms,
All our colours becoming red then brown,
They play for their own ends,
They play with our lives,
There is no endgame.