Jessica and Paul

Poem No. 4 from my upcoming book "Songs of the Sietch: 100 Poems About Frank Herbert's Dune, Denis Villeneuve's Dune, and Denis Villeneuve's Dune Part Two"

Jessica and Paul

Your names need to change

Why are you named like normal folk

When the world you’re in’s so strange?

Your friends are called Leto, and Thufir, and Gurney,

You don’t know anyone named Phyllis or Ernie

Ten thousand years in the future we are

Fighting with Feyd-Rautha, cosying up with Stilgar

And yet with the spice and the spaceships and all

Still your names are just Jessica and Paul

When you look out on the dry desert sands

And think of the Harkonnens dead by your hands

Do you not ever stop and wonder why on earth

You were given such ordinary names at your birth?

Jessica and Paul

You should be ashamed

Every day on Arrakis

That you’re not renamed