What A Life Poem by Patrick van der Loos

What a life
Says one man about another
Never looking at what he has achieved
Ones worth is always more than other eyes will see
Count your blessings the old ones say
What blessings? For one must always pay

What a life
That old cliché
Stolen from the mouth of the one
Who stole it from another. What darkness lurks?
Deep within the wells of the soul of the ones
Whom we so blindly admire. Poor sinful sons

What a life
to thieve our inspiration
To purchase the fools elixir of a happy life
From the snake-oil salesmen to whom we have been enslaved
And upon finding the deception, seek out new quackery
Empty fulfilment, alive; however never quite fully

What a life
Eternally sipping the addicting nectar
Endlessly sampling the poisonous draught
of the self-serving ideals of the other men
Your mind is yours! Free it, don't be a cog!
Be the machine! Don't spend life in a fog

What a life
It is mine to live
Mine to relish, mine to savour for all time
For I am a man! Not a number or a statistic
A free thinking entity who loves, and is loved
Self restrained, and not controlled from above