WHAT WILL IT MATTER

WHAT WILL IT MATTER

What will it matter, when I'm tired of the dance,
The strange back and forth, the call of romance.
The raining down men, the joining of hands,
The new sun rising on distant lands.

What will it matter, this bitter charade,
What will I care of the palaver of parade,
The meat on the bone that endangers my throne
And leaves me to my end alone.

What will it matter what fools time begets,
For I've come to the blaze and the burn of sunset.
Left to my memories, left to my tears,
Here in the tarnished gold rush of my years.

What will they matter, the promises that crash and burn,
School's out for summer and still I never learned
How to hold the things I love close to my heaving breast.
My jagged tears are crooked thieves picking the lock of my hope chest.

What will it matter if time wounds and maims,
I'm losing the words to announce my own name.
And just like the records a wounded deejay spins,
I'm caught in a groove that repeats without end.
And just like those records, my heart is skipping beats,
The water's filling up the lungs, the rain it pours in sheets.

What will it matter if the sun burns and grazes,
Scorching my heart in its bittersweet mazes.
I may be dying in the summer heat,
But I once knew love and the memory's sweet.
It fills the nostrils strong as clover
It sizzles and it knocks you over, heady as a vintage wine.
Life was long and lonesome, but love it once was mine.

What will it matter if I am speechless in the end?
I wrote these words when I was young and they are still my friend.
I must die as all men must, these words survive my ash and dust.
Heed them, scoff at them, burn them if you must.
What will it matter, when my heart has turned to rust?

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED