A poet pens in petty places
among a crowd of fretting faces.
The soul he spills upon the pages
lays down, like youth, while body ages.
He\'s lost, but lines from fevered fishing
fall fresh, from pen, like poison pissing.
They stain, with sin, his pristine paper.
Composing\'s such a chronic caper,
he thinks; and all that time he\'s wasting!
Offloading trash that\'s not safe tasting.
Yet, strangely, as the ink is sinking
it slowly soothes his troubled thinking!