NYUN

"When birds
lose their plumes
in the sand, 
they can’t 
glue balloons 

to their hands. 

They can’t fly

so they die"

     --traditional blues song

The years are like so many sweet girls.
They cuddle against the navel in the middle of the night.
They change O they challenge the body
with pain with delight.
But though the waist is gone, its shadow yet remains.

            Is this what we needed?

            To lie in fields that we seeded

            with the sperm of you/and/me?

My skin is a wrinkledup grocery sack,
all the goodies unpacked and eaten long ago.
My erection turned into ice yesterday,
my eyeballs into snow.
But though this face is gone, the halo yet remains.

            All the stones unheeded....The skies....The

            fields....

            Back have kneaded into worms, my 

            butterflies.

And the years. And the years: just like the sweet young girls!
Hanging in memory like leather kites,
gaudy garish stabbing harsh neon lights
to mark the passing of fond remembered rites.

But though this voice is gone, its echo yet remains.

            Is this what we needed?

            To die in fields which receded with the 

            germs of yesterday?

*

(A toast: Time is a precious necklace bequested
upon your birth. As time’s beneficiary, you must realize its worth. Though age encircles your throat with its usual yearly pearl, the worth rests in the wearer and not within the jewel.)

*

The Duane you loved is gone:
There’s a Stranger in his skin.
The old duane was younger,
and the new one’s bones are thin.
Former laughs reform as coughs.
The change cloud-to-clod begins.


"When birds lose their plumes in the sand,
they can’t glue balloons to their hands.
They can’t fly
 so they die."
 

 [nyun is a Korean homonym that means years or floozies]

 --Duane Vorhees