Ultimate Irony

by Bobby Gilbert

Eleven-o-six was the time on the clock.

Death Row was the forsaken place.

A man without hope for his life,

Silently stares into space.

His mind carries him back in time

To the night it all began;

When only trying to defend himself

He was forced to kill a man.

He remembers the judge and jury

Who thought his story a lie,

Convicted him of a capital crime

Then sentenced him to die.

He thinks about his loved one,

Who stood by him through it all,

But suddenly his thoughts got shattered

By the footsteps down the hall . . .

Four guards and a priest

Walk slowly to his cell;

One with the offer of Heaven -

Four with the promise of Hell.

He is escorted into the chamber,

And in the center of the room

Sits the foreboding wooden chair -

The harbinger of his doom.

His body has gone completely numb

As they strap him into the chair,

Then he looks into the viewing room -

With his mother standing there.

Tears begin flowing down her face

As she hears the warden say,

"Do you have any final words

Before we get under way?"

You're killing a man for killing a man

To show how killing is wrong;

Somehow it just don't seem right."

And then the switch was thrown.

© Bobby Gilbert [1987]