Cool, Old Guys Poem by David Welch

Every one knows those cool old guys
who seem like they've always been there,
you see them in bit parts in movies,
they seem to pop up everywhere.

Sometimes they sing a new duet
with a hot, young star on the rise,
then ten years later, do it again,
with a whole new starlet this time.

You see them telling stand-up jokes,
the kind the young comics never will,
because honestly, at that age
what career do you have left to kill?

They'll sit down on the late-night shows,
bantering with grand wit and charm,
blessed with the confidence of age,
there's little that gets them alarmed.

You grow up seeing cool old guys,
institutions that live and breathe,
even if they don't top the charts
they're always a joy just to see.

You try to get to their concerts,
they become a right-of-passage,
become memes you share with your friends,
their best lines you use as adage.

In the background they've always been
throughout the life that you've led,
then one day you wake up and find out
that old Frank Sinatra is dead.

Then Johnny Cash, not long after,
and the Gipper, now he's gone too.
Eventually, your grandparents go,
and the past they once linked to you.

Pillars that once seemed eternal,
crumble until there is only dust,
things that once seemed so very close
now seem to be nothing but rust.

Sure you can still hear the old songs,
watch the films of those bygone days,
but it becomes a mere shadow,
with them gone it is never the same.

And it feels a bit like you're adrift,
a rudderless boat on the sea,
times flies by, the cool, old guys die,
and the world seems a little less happy…