Time (Knee to lung deep)

Time.
You shameless river.
Swept me up
In your current
Like a child
Drowning in a man.
Who was I?
With raw nerve
And arrogant eyes
To stare into an abyss
And insist it turn away.
The city sleeps
On new years day,
Save smoke pouring
Like rolling ghosts
Above buildings in my
Window's pained frame.
I gaze
Too much for a busy man
So I clear calendars
Break dates, disappoint friends
So I might stare
At drifting tufts snaking,
Ebbing, flowing and slowly
Drifting into nothing.
Where does smoke go,
As it's substance blows
Away in the wind?
To new days, years away?
To abysses deep
And drawn in the palms
Of young boy's hands,
Particular in the flow
Of that ignoble show -
Boys drowning by
Midnight swims -
Singing cold hallelujah
Between desperate wet breaths;
Lifelines lost to lifetimes;
At least drowning
Men understand
Smoke doesn't fade,
It just swims in that
River we all wade;
Knee to lung deep
Full of shame.


I need to quit listening to so much Jeff Buckley when I'm trying to sleep.
I don't sleep.