We’ve left the university
I walked out wearing my red flag around my shoulders
You left wearing a beret, chanting:
‘The workers, united, will never be defeated’
We left
As the campus turned into the dollar sign that it is.
A dollar sign
Which provides delicious 5 dollar coffees
Served by a million young men who look like Thor
Only in hipster 80s sneakers.
We’ve left the university
Every student began the semester
Already defeated.
Our art was banished from the pavements.
The pavements where we made our art were demolished.
Demonstrations we used to go to have been replaced with what they call ‘ethical consumption’.
All our services were taken from us.
Was our education ever for us?
Or was it already dripping with coins into the pit of our poems?
I asked you.
I spoke with the faces as they left,
Faces of students who couldn’t afford to learn what they love.
I spoke with women who never did win their right to speak.
We are all leaving the university.
The birds are even leaving the skies of campus,
The skies of campus have now been filled with the kind of horrible music you hear in shopping centres.
The music that signals the death of education.
We only just got out in time.
With all our tears that stained the books we like to read.
Our books became drenched with our loss of freedom.
How much longer until you leave the university?
And where can we build a university we will not want to leave?
