“Cliff’s Edge”

Defiant waves pummel and kick   

striking against soaring towers   

Mists and cold spray leave the edge slick   

siphoning my waning powers     

I stand alone on the cliff’s edge   

collapsing within my despair   

I crawl cautiously to the ledge     

where brutal winds whip at my cares    

My fingers bleed with razor cuts   

sliced by the terrors that grip me    

I desperately grasp at the ruts   

carved by the sea’s eternity   

I lay prone on the jagged ground            

in submissive subjugation        

My chest constricts as I look down            

at Death’s beckoning temptation        

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Waves”

I stand—

a young Mrs. de Winter on a precipice

below call the waves

waves carrying bits of life

flotsam from broken lives

waves crashing against crags

a perilous edge of reality

waves misting a rainbow

covering unspeakable acts

I consider my fall into those waves

into the life you lead

Copyright 1995 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman