Shaking hands clutch at a dying cigarette,

As he stands upon life’s shaky precipice

One more step is all it will take him

To cheat the clearly predisposed arbitress

No invasive demon will ever bring him down

He will not be there for the seizing

To rob the vultures of their pray he mused

Was perhaps the one thing left to be pleasing

The summer breeze slaps at his exposed ear

As it skips over what once was a decent man

Tempting him forward to take his fate at last

And in cheating the enemy succumb to their plan

A life full of struggle, a life steeped in honour

Was it true he had been always obsequious?

And still he stood after forty years of toil

Alone and beaten and certainly impecunious

With grim determination he took one more stride

To bring him face to face with the final decision

As the wind whistled by he watched the cliff flash by

And marvelled at its apparent lack of precision

© Bernard J Rossi