TAKE HEED, GENTLEMEN:

the dick
does not come
with a lifetime guarantee;
I know this
is hard,
if not impossible,
to believe
for the young
and the middle aged
when a random thought
or brushing against
the past
or the future
or the immediate
stiffened the rope
that elephants
could hang from.
It's sad
like crossing a threshold
you didn't even know existed
but you've passed;
you look behind
at the gulf
and it seems as tiny as an ant's asshole,
but it might as well be on Mars;
almost as noiseless
as the near dead,
the spigot rasps
and coughs
and dribbles
as you watch
it empty: youth,
your youth
has taken off
for greener pastures.
No longer
will you be able to
guide it in, or,
like an old sock,
soft from wear and washing,
stuff it up there knowing
it will find a resting place,
anyplace, like the corner of a drawer.
It will be
a mocking appendage
that informs you
of the time it was,
the time it is,
and why old men
are so quick
to wage war.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012