The Napoleon Syndrome Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

That's strangely strange the man never thought of the other man as taller
than mind can exhibit. He thanks the other man for the clarifications
from his higher ether perspective and honors him with another inspiration.

As a matter of fact, after a scheduled physical check up the man is told
he grew a whole inch shorter. He whips out a measuring tape and reads
the truncated fact in inches.

Traumatized he switches the reading to centimeters. Not having
been himself in a good place lately he splurges on a jar of caviar
of the affordable kind that he prefers anyway over the black kind.

He spreads a thin layer on a Ritz cracker. Pours a half-bottle of Vodka
in a native size, lathe-turned, wood shot cup. He would've preferred
the cut crystal kind immersed half-way in a silver filigreed Podstannik

richly decorated in black and red and green and false gold curlicues.
But that would hurt his monthly pension. To drown his sorrows he downs
one, then another, accompanied in between by marinated ice-cold herrings.

All the while he listens to Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture and has visions
of the Battle of Paris and its following submission to Alexandre the First
of Russia. His mind towering at 172.72 centimeters.