Why do students want to learn any words

If they aint ever gonna use them

in poems and conversations to express their thoughts

Why build a treasure of foreign phrases

just to pass a distant test

But where and when have they been given a voice

being sons of the colonial world

grandsons of Confucious

Shutting up is a virtue

So why bother to learn

any language at all

Thus

Emotions unexpressed in words

explode in wayward forms

in New Year's slap exchanges

or dance steps in drug filled discotheques

in sweats in basketball courts

in songs by singers of HONG KONG

meaningless lyrics

absurd and helpless

When will they find their own voice

When will they need their own voice

ever