The young
Talk so flippantly of death
In their video games
And pop tunes
They posit heart attacks
And dying tonight
Disconnected
From
The Reaper's loom

The old
Sing so sweetly of love
The
Woulda
Shoulda
Coulda of lt all
Dusted with
Advancing decrepitude
As the brown leaves
Turn and fall.

Unexpected happenings
cast their shadows far ahead
as you notice afterwards
looking over your shoulder

Miles further on the way
you watch the landscape passing
and only then you notice
what you overlooked before

Small signs become signals
warning you in retrospect
of wrong turns you were taking
not noticing what lay ahead

A blush on the cheecks
a dizzy pressure in the head
should have told you to
pause the journey for a bit

as you have learned in hindsight
in gratitude of what went well


Eelco van der Waals
20 August 2025

To fall
When they
Say you should
And bounce
Off of
What they think
Is good
And bring back
What
Is clearly displayed
To the all
And then
To the good.

When the detritus
At last
Gets too deep
When there s
No clear vision
Awake
Or in sleep
While
The candles wax
Melts
And bubbles down
The foul grey sands
Whip off of the beach
To  cover the town
The infection
Not stopping
To your system
A rout
Them things  
Held within you
Start to leak out.

I'm 56 years old today
Got nothing to do
And too much to say
Used to be the other way
Contemplation
Will float you

But don't ponder too much
It's important to do
Lest that bit of  yourself
Supperates into goo

Solitude IS the gift
But you can overdo it
Get a grip of it
Don't just construe it.

The Collossi Of Memnon
Used to sing at dawn
On account of
Channels expertly hewn
A melody
That came straight from the gods
In a gust of sand
Across the dessert
Against the odds
They don't sing no more
The monoliths worn
And patched
In sullen silence
From the heavens detached.

It was a good day
Yesterday
But a bit **** the day after
On the see saw
You face
A fuzzy opponent
He insights
Both
Fear and laughter.