An old man stranded on a kerb

Reciting the bible

Stops, rises to his feet,

Counts the coins in a coffee cup

Gathered from guilt of strangers passing

Turns his head

To face the sky yelling

"what does it matter?"

 

Another child is buried

In the fires of Gaza.

A doctor watches

Bodies maimed, decaying

In a stalemate war

He denounces religion

And all its tragic consequences

Tears his clothes off

And walks naked to his death

Through the desert singing

"What does it matter?"

 

Two politicians argue

Fluently between truths.

An audience observes

This ugly rehearsal

Resigned, confined to sighing

In each head, a single thought

"It never mattered."

 

It is the chorus

Of our disappointment

The ballad of what life is meant to be.

Let it be sung now

Before our lungs

Turn to granite

And revolution

Is an old folk song.