Best Old Age Poems
Bit Of Truth And Wisdom, Found In Old Age
At that age wisdom says life is a joke
consider blindness of other poor folk.
Stop to ponder why on earth we exist
you may just find giving on that big list.
To live well, love hard and thus procreate
easy to see easier to relate.
Living life together with your soulmate
should be a part of everybody's Fate!
Finding life is not about what you got
should be holding solid, number one spot
Tis more about life lived well and deeper
with one you found, knew to be a keeper
If long life, happiness is your great aim
if reaching not for it, you are to blame!
Robert J. Lindley, 1-16-2017
Sonnet
Categories:
old age, encouraging, family, humanity, life,
Form:
Sonnet
I see you coming, old age
Approaching, at an ever-accelerating pace,
Your face is so grim
Your expression is so austere
Your look so menacing,
A frightening sight you are
Many battles I have fought in life
With vigor and youth at my side
Thus victorious I emerged
But
Now that my allies slowly abandon me
One after the other,
I am left alone in the last battle to fight
A battle, I know beforehand I am bound
To lose
However
At this moment as trials begin
When all seem to get tougher by the day
A new ally I have found, willing to help me,
All my courage to amass to confront you,
Oh, merciless old age:
The wisdom I have acquired all these years
Roaming the planes of experience and
Learning!*
© Demetrios Trifiatis
18 June 2017
* This poem was honored as POTW on the 25th of June 2017. I thank everyone who has appreciated it as everyone who visit me and commented for without their love nothing would have been possible. THANK YOU, PS!
Categories:
old age, age, life, wisdom,
Form:
Personification
The maracas of leafy trees
whisper rhythms to the wind,
a quiet song of December.
Four days---- left to go---
till the year ends,
and time spills forward,
its hands brushing past us,
softly, relentless.
You and I,
counting moments,
the weight of years
settling like dew-----light, inevitable
somethings are done, a lot many left undone
but the ceaseless march of time moves forward.
But here in the enchanting garden,
under the sun’s gentle gaze,
age is a story written in roots and petals,
a bench painted green with memories
What is there to grieve,
when old feels like this-----
and life hums softly
in the company of trees?
Categories:
old age, age, angst, december, hope,
Form:
Free verse
How
I loved
summer fairs -
the cool night wind
in my hair as I
twirled on the tilt-a-whirl
or climbing into sky. . . then
descending at lightening speed,
stomach leaping at the thrill of it;
I was buzzed, wishing it would never end.
My fifty-ninth birthday at the state fair,
I sampled again the drug I craved
when I bought two tickets for rides.
But my pleasure was short-lived.
By the second ride and
feeling nauseous, I
had to accept
I’d taken
my last
ride.
Written 2/25 For the Two Lenses Poetry Contest of Sara Kendrick
Categories:
old age, age, fun, drug,
Form:
Etheree
Whoever succeeds in adopting a positive attitude towards old age,
The passing of years, would not appear an earthly burden on him,
But, heavenly bliss.
-
-
© Demetrios Trifiatis
15 September 2024
-
* As always, I share the honor of P.O.T.D., with all my friends. I thank each one of you who has commented on my poem, as well as the officials who bestowed the honor upon my writing. Blessings.
Categories:
old age, age, earth, heaven,
Form:
Free verse
Imagination never diminishes with age;
on the contrary,
the loss of memory only enhances
the thoughts of what usta be...
Categories:
old age, age, humorous,
Form:
Monoku
Oh graceless, Old Age,
Your unattractive face the many despise
But your company they desperately seek
For
How else, could the magic of life enjoy
If they were not among those you pick?
© Demetrios Trifiatis
10 January 2016
Categories:
old age, age, life, old,
Form:
Epigram
YOUTH AND OLD AGE
Get off your galloping horse of youth’s impressions
Stop looking down upon old age with contempt
You are still on the planes of doubt and uncertainties
Having not yet made in life any real attempt.
Not even a hill of problems have you ascended
Neither have you faced a serious thunderstorm
How is it possible for you ever to be assuming
Without experience your elders to reform?
You better stop and think for a single moment
All those whose heads have turned white or gray
How many hills of harm and mountains of troubles
Have they been through and climbed to this day?
Your youth, a spectacular time, for you to enjoy
Dreams to make of what you would wish to assure
Sadly though the future for you a possibility is only
For everyone knows that nothing in life is for sure.
So the preferable thing you ought to be doing
Is to listen carefully to these experienced old folks
For better, it is to learn from mistakes they made
Than knowledge to gain from your very own faults!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
30 NOVEMBER 2013
Categories:
old age, education, old, youth,
Form:
Quatrain
As he sat on his old front porch gently rocking his swing.
His old mind a million miles away not really thinking on anything.
Staring into space he just let his old thoughts run free.
Wondering how he got to this place, all alone and lonely as could be.
Just killing time somehow became the daily norm.
Without someone to share your thoughts somehow life can take on a brutal
form.
His children are all grown and they never come by.
They’ve got lives of their own was his reasoning as to why.
Was I this selfish, as he tried to recollect those memories from way, way back.
Maybe I was he thought as he tried to get his thoughts back on to track.
A tear ran down his old face as he got up to go back inside.
The pain was still there too hard for him to hide.
There was nothing left for him to prove, he was just an old man and this he knew.
Everyday played out the same as he longed for this day to be through.
His nights were quite short while his days seemed to never end.
As he sat down at his table and called out to Jesus his only true friend.
He said Father when You’re ready please take me home.
I’m tired of this heartache of living alone.
As he sat at the table he felt a sudden peace.
He felt his soul being lifted in its final release.
With angels all around him he ascended in flight.
Heading for heaven he’d be there fore night.
As he reached Heavens Gate there stood our Lord.
He said I’m sorry but you weren’t ready I know it was hard.
He said I know that you’re ready so please come on in.
There is someone that’s been waiting she is waiting within.
Categories:
old age, death, inspirational, life, for
Form:
Narrative
During lunch I announced when I retire I am going to go to jail.
What?
Jail, I repeated. I will rob a bank or something.
The three others laughed.
Think about it, I told them. How much do nursing homes cost?
They started to think about it and discussed how much they
Were already paying for their own mothers
$4,500 a month $8,000 a month, $10,000 a month.
Jail is free right? To the prisoner anyway, not to the rest of us.
I could play cards, make lots of new friends, and maybe write poetry
New story ideas I’ll bet, maybe some really juicy new story ideas!
My family would save thousands of dollars, maybe even tens of thousands
Of dollars.
How would you get in? I would rob a bank, I told them. No one laughed.
They were thinking…..
Then all three burst out laughing.
I could! I insisted, convincing no one, not even myself.
Categories:
old age, grandparents, retirement,
Form:
Free verse
Dawn seeps soundlessly in to scatter the darkness.
Around is silence and quiet and calm.
From my lofty balcony, I can admire the serenity
Of the vast immensity of the ocean, all smell of balm.
Let tranquillity invade my lonely soul, O Lord.
The arduous day will soon be full of all its pains.
And I am old, too old to face the vexatious turmoil
That surrounds me, for I am all aches and sprains.
How can I face the rough and tumble of this misery?
I need wisdom to discern all that is foolish and vain,
I need peace to avoid worries and other upsets.
I need love to forgive others’ injuries and bane.
Life is short and I’m much too old to bear pains.
Death will be a relief from all that troubles me.
However life is precious and I will live it through,
Only with your genial grace that comes from Thee.
Categories:
old age, age, old,
Form:
Rhyme
The other night at the bookstore in a young family strolled
and it didn’t take but a minute for them to make me feel old.
We have an antique typewriter in the store…
(the kind that makes a clicking sound and ends with that familiar ‘ding’)
which the young girl took one look at it and asked:
“Dad, what is this thing?”
Her dad explained how it was a typewriter.
He said, “People used to write letters on these
but that was long before you were born
back in the ‘70s.”
All of a sudden it was like in some time warp I was caught
I swear I aged 10 years that moment…right there…on the spot.
Then before I could compose myself…and my old age feelings allay
Her mom found a book on the Beatles and the daughter asked…”Who are they?”
I had a moment to reflect on how time is a funny thing
for imprinted on each generation are memories to which we cling…
Things that were important to us…important to who we are
are unknown to future generations…or even seem bizarre.
But we must never forget the past if humanity is to survive
which means it’s up to us, the older ones, to keep those memories alive.
This is a burden we must accept…a responsibility we can’t shirk
so I walked over to the typewriter and said, “Let me show you how this works.”
I loaded a sheet of paper…my typing was crisp and clean…
I quickly typed: The Beatles were the best band the world has ever seen!
Then I left the girl to type on her own
(Hopefully this is a memory to which she’ll cling)
“Daddy, I’m typing!” She said with a smile.
“Listen, you can hear the ding?”
With a Beatles CD playing in the background she asked
“Mommy I love this typewriter can you buy me one?”
and though they did not purchase a single book…
I knew my work, that night, was done.
Categories:
old age, age, memory, old,
Form:
Verse
It came upon me unawares
As I bargained to make a living.
Thus absorbed in daily cares
The years I deemed forgiving.
Getting old was ages away
I told myself each new year.
"I'm still young," I liked to say,
"I'm certain to stay right here."
But the clock began to chime
Messages in muted tones.
I was running out of time,
A blackening in the bones.
I felt it too in others' acts
Addressing me as sir.
They excused my mislaid facts
Ever pretending I didn't err.
A godly mercy attends old age,
The past becomes a blur.
It eases one off life's stage
Thinking things that never were.
Categories:
old age, age, death,
Form:
Rhyme
Jack sits in the wheelchair in the grass
a rebel nerd, he thinks of the time
when he cycled up Teton Pass
by a stream through walls of pine
Obsessed, this viewpoint vampire
his memory full of hill and vale
A landscape loon, an odd desire
But now his body is his jail
The harried nurse to her surprise
Distracted from a patient's cries
sees a vision in Jack's fogged eyes
lakes and forests and crimson skies
[chorus]
In each scene, views so grand
At six thousand feet, he biked along
Never quite reached the Promised Land
But the last verse is not the song
Kate sits in the same old age home
A relic from a bygone show
Her friends long dead, she's now alone
Her melody no longer on the radio
She was warm and could be all heart
Now a meteor in afterburn
She knows that bodies fall apart
Resigned or not, the wheel must turn.
[outro]
Jack and Kate were luckier than some
They were free, knew right from wrong
They lived a long life, and had their fun
The last verse is not the song.
Categories:
old age, change, freedom, life, old,
Form:
Lyric
Mesh
Of my window screen
In spring
Licked from the inside by our inherited old lady
She is made of bird bones
White whiskers
Wearing her oversized fur coat in the new heat
Pulled from mothballs
Tongue of sandpaper
Scratches and tastes
I don’t know what
Bitter pollen?
Invisible scents of fellow felines
Hunting shrews from under the garden?
Or lion mares of dandelions?
Perhaps
She is merely savoring herself
In the intricate weave of parallel atoms
Who wants a mirror at this age?
Without ears or eyes in her private world
She finds an in between
Alive
On the inside
And from the outside
My ancient mom hisses
None of your business.
Categories:
old age, age, cat, endurance, freedom,
Form:
Free verse