Crane

Just as long
as each line
is filled
time
is held better.
Words, the snare
words, the solution
to themselves
divert from the issue
real issue of living
or not.
Just as long
as they keep
the flow
the rest of this debauchery
passes as just a process
of cultivating character.
I can smoke
until I taste the bloodflow
of collapsing alveoli,
chew up the past
in candy fistfuls of sweet Valium,
scratching out little lies
that give me license
to fill each page
unfolding uncounted, untold years
shedding thoughts I’d barely dared to dream.
I fold ten poems an hour
into paper cranes
polluting the whole stretch
of ancient water
with diluted words.