The Apparition

In morning gloom, on cobbled street,
A gastly soul I came to greet.
Upon its face the world was borne.
Upon its back in tatters, torn,

A burlap bag was packed and hung.
Its filthy cloth was rent and clung
To skin and bone like mud to stone.
And then I thought I heard it moan.

My God, Thought I, no apparition
So moves outside of its condition.
With twisted foot and mournful song
It drew its withered stick along,

Like curlew from the nest will draw
The cat who walks on velvet paw.
It led me to a street light post
And there it clung, my specter host.

It leered at me with ruthless grin,
Saliva glistening on its chin,
And in its ragged claw I deem
To see a flask of old Jim Beam.

'You drunken sot, is that your lot?'
I offered up, and nowhere got.
But just another moan then rolled
From fetid mouth and then the toll

Of standing to long in one spot
Had come upon him, down he dropt!
On cobbled stone, with death, his test,
My apparition came to rest.

His fall thereof will end his strife.
My apparition came to life
To move one day from life to death,
We'd shared within a single breath.