Dame Observation

I would remain quiet as the surrounding
autumn midnight.
The boozy precipitation
jostles and collides against itself,
Creating friction and heat.
In the alleyway below me,
my protégé, Unnamed Man,
Gazes on this ballet of Newtonian Fluids,
composed by the prodigiously inebriate,
the progenitors of his own genius.
“How they splash from one another
in synch with my pen strokes!
Yet, less numerous than my words,
these are, even though they have greater aspirations
and little means to materialize them.”
He sighs, pining for gaiety and mirth,
yet for the little knowledge given him by me
of what sharing such company brings, he is ill-armed.
Finally, he gapes his maw
for a draught of that sour mess in the air…

He kind of flows—similar to the drunks, but He stands as
oil to their alcohol.
I noiselessly clamber down the wall and
whisper my sapience to him (because of his ignorance.)
I gripped him before he drizzled into the gutter.
He, appalled, barely bolts himself erect. “Observation!”
He then calms, “It’s been a long time.”
“Give me your hand, milady, please.” He requests.
“If you allow me, then I will allow you,” I promise him.
He steals his chance and pirouettes up wobbling.
He leads, and I follow, though I am before him the whole time.
The graveyard is the final destination my charge takes me to.
It is a place where the truest of introspections is achieved;
it simulates one’s dying throes.

“I excel in my craft…” notes Unnamed, “…and I would, as well,
in the sot-waltz!” He tries to cop a dance with me there,
and I refuse, musing, “The dance of the drunk is brief and noisy,
and not conducive to excellence in anything.”
He shushes me, “Do you notice how all who waltz in the path of
Soul’s rays, cast only a thin penumbra for miles behind them,
But only a brief umbra… sure, it’s enough shade…
but it only lasts until they die. My shadow stretches boundlessly,
thickly after death! Because I wrote and drank... they listened to me!
And it contains all parts it should..."

It stretches into the ghetto, you don't see, I think to myself.
“A shadow alone. No light…” I advise. “The fog blots it out.”
“The only reason these cast such a shadow
is because of the drink?” He contemplates a moment,
then he cries out mournfully, “But no! Mozart! Poe! Alexander! Oh!”
My protégé’s voice trailed off.
He thought again and again and again,
the way no inebriate ever could.
I finally break the silence, “Let us dance with our minds,
To the house—no, the tomb of the drunkard, and maybe then…
You will listen to me. Don’t piss your ink into these sepulchers!”

He retorts strongly, “Dame Observation, I’ve heard enough.”
I take a breath in. He continues, “Those three I mentioned, the genii,
I will invite into my house, feed them with grain,
and bottle them for the bad times or good times. I will imbibe them
for whatever purpose they may best serve me.”
He, decidedly and determinedly tries to walk from the graveyard,
to live the life of his choosing.

The dead cast only a shadow,
while those who truly live, shine.

…and so I bolt shut the outward gate.