I see you coming, old age.
Approaching, at an ever-accelerating pace,
Your face grim
Your expression austere
Your look menacing.
A frightening sight you are
Yet,
I welcome you with open arms.
I yearn to embrace you
To be at your side
To celebrate the twilight of my life with you
To enjoy your company,
The company that so many at my age,
Had never had the chance to relish.
Innumerable battles I have fought in my life,
With vigor and youth at my side,
Thus
Victorious, I emerged,
But
Now, that my youth's allies are slowly abandoning me,
One after the other,
I am left alone to fight the last battle.
A battle, I know beforehand I am bound to lose.
However,
At this moment of trials
When all seems to get tougher by the day,
A new ally I have found, willing to help me,
All my courage to amass to confront you, with
Equanimity, oh, merciless old age:
The wisdom I have acquired all these years,
Roaming the planes of experience and
Learning!
-
-
Demetrios Trifiatis
17 August 2026
-
* This poem was written to celebrate my 82nd Birthday on the 15th of August 2026
("On the Edge of Time", 2026, original encaustic)
It’s easy to think all things
Will eventually wind down
Because that is the path
We see all things are on,
Especially us as we grow old
And all the parts begin to fail
And take forever to heal
As we hunker down
In slow decline.
Without risk, there is no change
And without change, there is no growth.
Eventually entropy will win
And the universe will go cold,
Or so we tell ourselves
As if it’s some consolation
In a world without us.
But looking into the void like this
Forgets where we came from.
We did arise after all,
And that simple, inexplicable miracle
Trumps entropy every time.
Entropy is the known,
The obvious, the given.
Life on the other hand
Is the mystery.
Will entropy ultimately triumph?
Not on your Life!
(6/5/26)
When I was younger I practiced meditation
Like clockwork, sitting twice a day
And sometimes all day.
Now that I’m older
Fatter, wiser, more stiff and tired
I still practice
But in the form of watering gardens
Feeding dogs and mowing lawns.
I’ve got these routines down
So they are mostly mindless
Which is of course the goal
Of all mindful meditation.
What are my experiences of accomplishment
You may ask;
A vision of rainbow-body flower blossoms
Amid a thousand shades of green,
A heavenly chorus of bird song,
A soft caress of Sunlight on bare skin,
And, not least, the joy of a pack of dogs
Fed on time, every time.
These are the simply joys of retirement,
The joys of a life slowed down
Enough to smell
And sometimes even eat
The roses.
(6/3/26)
Stared at the ashes of burned bridges
Blank and free, stripped of emotion
Densely piled through the ages
Obscured from memory, no recollection
The scorching fire came not from inside
Unaware even that a tether exists
A consciousness bound in receding tides
Resembles a sun to an evening mist
Wasted by life’s strange concoction
Dampened hopes, dimmed sight
In a cobweb of confused emotions
Wildly spun, tangled tight
Lost while traveling the selfless road
Regret revealed what truly matters
Reached the isle of pain—cold and broad
Relief, now, found behind closed shutters
Solitude, a consolation offered
To an existence where others once lived
A need for what remains to be spared
When value, in the absence, is perceived
I have a right to dance.
In my elder years, all sound has faded.
The once pure melodies are now atonal.
But kicking up a storm,
dancing is a revolutionary act.
I have a right to dance.
I awaken to a chorus of chanters,
I awaken to the legends and lore.
Part dream, part audio reception.
Part past life, part immaculate conception.
Part laugh, part delirious deception.
I am connected, I am comforted,
I am confronted, I am contorted
by forces ever so much larger,
by senses ever so much stronger.
I have a right to dance,
a right to prance in the human parade.
Like ants, my cells are self-organizing.
Like trees, my rings archive my story.
I smell and taste the music I recall.
I savor the instinctual harmonies,
the behavior of rhapsodies.
I deliver the symbolic pirouettes,
the mimetic genuflect.
All motion becomes a spectacle.
All movements shape a carnival.
With my body, I advance,
moods and dreamscapes, I enhance,
lost and forgotten in the endless expanse.
I have a right to dance!
No matter what I do,
No matter what I don’t,
Return one day I’ve to
This water hole-- hangout haunt.
To this polluted river
Fouled by me to wash me clean,
Me, the same old beaver
To build my lodge anew and green.
To plough my own karmic field
To sow seeds, raise my food,
If or not they would yield,
Yet, I must try still if just to feel good.
And find I must my own fault
To start all over again,
Wash my wounds-- there’s no alt
But to play the same old refrain.
Guru there’s nor a god-man
Nor a ready-made lotion
To rub on my wounds if in vain,
Imbibing same bitter potion
And search for remedy,
Create my own antidote
To cure my self-wrought malady,
Life is to struggle, swim sans boat.
No matter what I do,
No matter what I don’t,
Return one day I’ve to
To this water-hole-- hangout haunt.
_______________________
Musings | 07.05.2026 | life, philosophy, river, quatrain
Eight long decades I’ve taken
To know this life’s touchstone like truth:
Man loves to live anywhere
But at life’s battle-hardened booth.
Yea, we scarce want to be
Where life for reason has brought us,
And wishing to migrate
There, there to fish for no cause.
Old age, as is inevitable,
As it brings me to brood,
And mind being unstable,
Ambles back to my childhood,
Which, without the least of doubt,
One of the pleasant most,
Though not always sugarcane sweet
That be chewed till void of its boast.
I recall still when I was there—
A child in flesh and blood and mood,
Not an apparition of thought,
My thoughts centred oft on adulthood.
Today I wonder, not just childhood,
Life’s every stage is such a swell time,
Which, when one gets older feels good,
But mind meanders, reason nor rhyme.
Not at life’s battle-hardened booth…
It’s taken me eight long decades
To know this life’s touchstone like truth:
Leaving all jewels, man chases jades.
__________________________
Musings | 06.05.2026 | age, birth/brood, childhood, old, quatrain
clear wrinkles of time
stories etched on feeble hands~
life's soft, silent chime
grey hair slowly fall
a journey hard, well- travelled~
canvas on the wall
distant laughter gleams
echoes of a vibrant past~
memoirs flow like streams
Sunlight dulls the eyes
wisdom surfs in the brain~
gazing at the sky
breath is slow and rough
strings of pains begin to sting~
the journey's end is tough.
I hurt.
My adventures playing chase through my mind;
Of hiking, skydiving, mountain climbing,
Of hunting, wrestling, and things of that kind.
From the arctic and its frozen waste lands
To Southeast Asia, I have widely roamed,
Using snowshoes or hiking jungles gloamed.
I hurt.
My adventures remind me every day
Of what it has cost me to pursue them.
Of many broken bones along the way;
Of torn muscles and tendons, I’ve received
Broken collars and shattered shoulder bones.
Now I hurt and feel so all alone.
I hurt
I have days I mainly stay in my bed.
Age has crept upon me like a leopard.
It is the devourer I now dread.
People think I’m strong, but don’t understand.
Pain is payment for my adventures then,
And remind me of glories way back when.
(“Before the Door” 2023, original encaustic)
There’s a part of me
That would rather do nothing
Not water and mow the lawns,
Weed and harvest the gardens
Feed and walk the dogs
Wash and feed my body
Maintain and clean the house.
And there’s a part of me
That does all these things
Because they need to be done
And they nourish my soul
(As well as benefit others),
Despite the inertia
Of that part that is happy to just sit
And watch it all grow into chaos
And fall into decay.
Patiently my long-suffering wife listens,
To then pronounce,
“That’s sad and pathetic”
(5/4/26)
Oh!I wish to be 20 again,
Living a life that I would never forget
Following my dream
Like a passionate bee,
Taking all those risks
Building my own dream house
With every hard earned bricks.
I wish i had enough courage
To do the things i was afraid of
Now i can only scoff
Travelling the whole world
Experiencing different stuffs
But now I'm living a life of a puff
Sitting in a corner
Like a foreigner
They say its never too late
But now it's actually too late
I always waited for right time to come
But then i realized I wasted my entire life in apologism
Now here I'm waiting for death to come
And give me a sympathetic hug
Oh! I wish to be 20 again.
the wretched burnt-orange sun
beats down on my broken car
as she thumps mindlessly through potholes
with windows down
we gaze at clowns
and the derelicts
and the dirty tricks
as they crawl
across the pavement
the lively beauties walk
amongst jackasses and Gemini's
confused hooligans steal
from random pedestrians
to feed addictions
fulfilling a need, though
they mean you no harm, indeed
despite their transgressions
we're all devoured
by our own deceptions
Write A Beautiful Terza Rima,
Contest sponsor: Constance La France
Date Written: 4/17/2026
I am challenged by the dark night
Some nights ample tears fall like rain
Now I feel I've come to the light
As I traverse world's rocky lane
Always I've lived by his strange beat
He chose me, I cannot explain
I followed pathway of his feet
Sometimes, I did in my sleep cry
But put on a smile in the street
Now I've had to say my good-bye
You have gone to a new far height
Somewhere up in God's awesome sky
Now I have to stand alone, right?
And now challenged in the dark night
He took his Mom shopping, so she could walk with a cart
She had cognitive decline, and failure of the heart.
He took her in a wheelchair on the river asphalt path
He took over the taxes, because she couldn't do the math.
He drove her to the doctors, cancer, cardiac and more
He cleaned up the dishes, he vacuumed the kitchen floor
He took out the trash, managed all the bills
No time for things he liked to do, like cycling up the hills.
No time to read new science, he felt sorry for himself
Always in a rearguard action against declining health
But he thinks of the many years, from the age of two
When she did all this and wrote books, an ethic to be true.
But there's a twist, though others see him as faithful son
He attracted bad guys attention and then hope was none.
Trouble found Mom's doorstep, in some ways he's to blame
A criminal attractor, Mom paid for his past stain.
(for Carol)
Sun was shining and West African kora music playing
As I walked through your open front door
Smiling beauty in apron with dinner aromas wafting
Greeting as one old friend to another
So newly met
Full to overflowing with expectation.
How long ago that winter’s day was
As vivid and fresh today
As the light and sounds, sights and smells
So indelibly impressed.
Now with the first of spring
Busying ourselves loading boxes
For another life-changing move,
Silently we each pray it is our last,
But know it won’t be
As time wears us down
And all the things that gave us meaning
Are replaced by something else.
Someday our hobbies and chores
Gardens and trees, pets, birds and bees
Like our aches and pains will prove too much
And we will retreat again
Seeking solace in ever more simplicity.
Until with senses and memory faded
We will be left
With just the sights and sounds
And the light that still lingers
Through the door you so warmly opened
So long ago.
(3/20/26)
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