Written 1961, at the age of 16, describing the “beatniks” of the time.
They sit in the gloom in corners poky,
In clubs and in pubs and in dens all smoky.
They dress in black, and they drink and they swear,
And they never laugh, and they say that they care
For the state of the world, that it’s so unfair.
But they sit and look bored and tired and depressed,
And drift like the smoke from one den to the next.
And they don’t want to work. They want to be free.
Is it a grievance, or apathy?