Slowly I've seen the unruly co-opted, the locality boys I was afraid of,
The boys who smoked bidis under the bamboo groves
Now buried under employment, "adulthood" and churchwork.
Why was I so scared of these men?
Now as docile as hens -
These men ain't so tough,
They could have used that boldness, that wit, that rough -
Now all they can do is mouth psalms and anecdotes about great white men
Who lived over there, back then
Men like Abe Lincoln and Churchill-
Monuments you can no longer interrogate
Because they've changed to clean white marble.
That's what the world wants.
That same world that wants these lads to exhaust their power and youth,
To wear down in rebelling, become depressed,
Come back like some biblical son, then work a decent job, rear a decent family; and die, decently.
I hate them for giving up
