Poem for a Birthday

Things to come, the clock case hides,
The tick through tunings of the past,
When we were young and unsafe,
Black shadows held against the light,

Strobed in the background of films,
Forever lithe and threatened,
By our own risks and projects,
The infinite falls of youth.

Now the junk rooms fill with stuff,
The unread, unused articles of non-war,
Jamming the down pipes,
Making me immortal.