Crumbled underneath shattered dreams,
that fell before they could span their wings.
Struggling for a quick last gasp of breath,
He bore the brunt of horrid sufferings.
He knew by intuition, that all was lost,
and the crucifying pain stung like hell.
He had gambled and stumbled in succession,
And before he could rise, again he fell.
Maybe ambition had driven him mad,
or maybe greed had stabbed him in the back.
Penalized for wishing and barred from hoping,
He was imperiously ****** into a ravine so black.
He had shrieked for aid as he bled,
But a shameless silence answered his yelp.
Success had made him many friends,
But in misery, he had only his shadow for help.
Convinced of his apparent invincibility,
he had jeered at predictions of his fall.
But when the fatal fist struck and strangled him,
he shivered and stood cornered against the wall.
His life got embroiled in the worst of controversies,
with luck dealing all the dreaded cards.
The public juggernaut steamrollered over him,
And his destiny broke into a thousand shards.
People stood shocked as his fortunes dipped,
and readily chronicled the tragedy of his tale.
His spectacular doom had fluttered many minds,
and his life was enveloped in a stormy gale.
Stripped of all his glory, he stood naked
at the altar of the Great Court of Deeds.
Prosecution was sharp and the judgement brisk,
and he was gheraoed by a ghetto of Satan’s steeds.
He could smell the stench of felony in the air,
as once-familiar voices called for his head.
The wretched flimsiness of human loyalties
filled his torn heart with a fierce hatred.
Even as they pitilessly led him to the gallows,
the resolution of all illusions made him blind.
And even before the darned noose had tightened,
Hopelessness had triumphed over his mind.
So, he died – a pathetic predetermined death,
punished for living rightly by the wrong rules.
Lost amidst the cruel ironies of his world,
crushed under the combined weight of fools.
More of my poems on www.mehtanishank.wordpress.com