Listening to a travel announcement while descending a flight of steps to a London Tube booking hall recently proved my undoing. I lifted my gaze to look for a Tube map just before I reached the last step. The inevitable happened, fortunately bruising only my dignity. (As an exercise in short-line verse, this one fails at the very end . . .)
Well, I declare:
That bottom stair
Is just thin air!
It isn’t there,
Not there at all
(Or very small).
“Look out!” I call
Before I fall –
A pointless sound!
I check around:
Here comes the ground –
I’ll soon be downed.
There’ll be a smash,
A spatial clash . . .
There! In a flash,
A mighty CRASH!
I shout a curse:
It’s very terse –
“Oh blow!” or worse
(Not fit for verse).
I’ll now test this
Hypothesis:
That my mate Chris
Will take the opportunity to make fun of me . . .
See also ‘The ladder’