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Jul 2011
Youโ€™ve got to love the little old men,
The ones in the coffee shop from three till ten,
The ones who eat cheese and read the news,
The ones who seek the finest wines to choose.
Little old men with long lost cleats,
These are the little old men in the streets.

The little old men who walk around,
Quietly humming adding some sound,
The tock, tock, tock of their cane on stone,
The tick, tock tick of their life long worn,
The little old men who oft hand out treats,
Those are the little old men in the streets.

Some little old men hunched over from war,
Remain so from the packs they bore,
Their muscles and bones ten years have been sore,
But ask them now - what were you fighting for?
The little old man will regain some youth,
Say they were fighting for love,...- freedom and truth.
"But we were young" he'll say-., "My best friend was young and he died at my feet",
Those are the little old men in the street.

With finite wisdom and finite life,
These little old men once had a wife,
And no doubt plenty of children too,
In their day, two was too few.
But age you see, has had its way,
On that younger man of the day, ...
And the little old men in the streets can't stay.

One day you'll wake up and worryingly see,
No men in the shop, no men by the sea,
A stack of newspapers bundled up tight,
And little old men nowhere in sight.
Till one day walking in the fields you find,
No tombstone, no flowers but a burial mound,
And that little old man in the streetsโ€™bin found.
Written by
Raja Badr-El-Din
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