Delirium Tremens

Every evening at 9 o'clock three men sit down at the park

They speak of longitudes, of life and of death of things

The three men drink whiskey and wine and they dine on scrabs

Fine dining that tastes of oysters and sea, drinks reminding of paradise, of Eden's fruit

They laugh but never cry, the night swallows all tears before they have time to gather

The three men never sit quietly, silence is left for the morning

In the night, where crickets sing, the three men steal time from the masters, but never from the poor

In their presence the darkness fades and rises, one shimmering lamp reaching over the three men's feast

The three men's conversation is like an awning over the sidewalk covered in dirty footprints on asphalt kissed by raindrops from the sky

No-one seems to pay any mind to the three men, they are occupants of the night to be escaped

But their presence is known

Even though their messy words are swallowed by the foliage and traffic on the streets

The three men do not pay any mind either

Except for one person who often comes at midnight

This is just one visitor of the night, dressed sharply or in rags

The three men do not bow to him but make space when he arrives

But the conversation always flows, no matter what

When the clock ticks away time, the dancing surface of the liquid in the three men's bottles lower as the night around turns more quiet

The guest is always gone before the bottoms are turned up

Promise of sleep doesn't affect the three men

They have shadows under their eyes that morning light never shines on

When the dust from dirt turns into fog in the air the three men are already gone

The bottles left behind catch the dew of morning light as they shine on the table left otherwise empty

Those, and the three men's footprints are left as reminders of the night lived in the park

The cleaners of the morning always do their job and take the remains away in their wake

The morning light never looks right dancing on the bottom of a bottle

The days come and go, but in the night the three men gather again and again

For them, time is measured by the stars

And time after time, the feast is started again

And the park is never left empty