Like mussels we sit in cafés,
one hunts for a business venture
one for another billion
a fourth wife
breasts polished by civilization.
One stalks London for a lofty mansion
one traffics in arms
one seeks revenge in nightclubs
one plots for a throne, a private army,
a princedom.
Ah generation of betrayal,
of surrogate, indecent men,
generation of leftovers, we’ll be swept away-
never mind the slow pace of history-
by children bearing rocks.

–Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998), “Children Bearing Rocks”