Three score and ten is it, says Jahweh
Three score and ten is all you’re allowed
After three score and ten you’re finished
Whoever you are, humble or proud
Don’t waste your breath asking for longer
Man was allotted seventy from when he began
Complain all you like, forget it, it’s official
Take it from Jahweh – seventy’s man’s natural span
Though he listens both to saints and to sinners
On this particular point, see, Jahweh is firm
“I created the world with strict regulations
And this is one I’m enforcing long-term”
Men may succumb to malfunctioning prostates
For a woman the killer inside is the breast
But for both genders obsolescence is programmed
No wonder mankind is depressed
You’re not there when the planet’s created
And you’re not there when the planet expires
You’re live like the average mosquito
Because that’s all that Jahweh requires
Jahweh picks you up and he look at you
Having looked, he soon puts you down
Don’t imagine you’re of any significance
For him, you’re a shrug, a fancy, a frown
His joke is to make everyone different
So each one feels they have some special aim
But it’s only Jahweh making his special mischief
Because each of us ends up the same
He’s no interest in your particular pleadings
For your feeling he gives not a whit
If you suggest you deserve something better
He wipes you out and that’s it
You can choose to be burnt or be buried
Or pulled through the streets in elaborate display
Don’t fool yourself: it’s simply a means of postponing
An unending future of rot and decay
It’s hard to accept of my Nicole
Whom I loved more than any woman I knew
The idea that she too is mortal
Seems too absurd to be possibly true
Look in her eyes and see her laughter
Look in her face and see her delight
Then contemplate the indefensible system
That condemns her to go out like a light
There’s no way of accepting the arrangements
They seem devised for maximum pain
We give our whole lives to another
Then we never see them again
Face it: we’re victims of a cruel sense of humour
The only thing God truly loves is a joke
The rest of the stuff is kerfuffle
Whether you’ve lived as a bird or a bloke
Come, Nicole, come close and embrace me
Let me swim in the pool of your gaze
Forget Jahweh. Fuck him! Tell him from both of us
Seventy’s nothing these days
NOTE: Jahweh is a pronunciation for the Hebrew four letter word YHVH, denoting the God of the Old Testament. Nicole Farhi is a Jewish fashion designer, sculptor and wife of Sir David Hare.