Jimi Hendrix

(James Marshall Hendrix 1942- 1970)

His music is suspicious,
nightmare of history,
smashed at our ears.

Oceans, gales, rain, sunken vessels,
dreams - separated.

Songs - dreams to pay for,
no celebrations,
ancestral pain, camouflaged
as equilibrium

on roads
where we
now and then inquire:
Did they eat?

And they, only on casual encounters, ask:
O, why the separation?

for no purpose or reason;
our lives wouldn't be spared
if we kept silent and gave up the search.

The roads don't bring the child home;
They overlap and change
as they extend beyond space,
where values we cherish and die for
are equalized:

Only the eye,
is an image trap and a scream
that nests in the eye and displays
a hazy white landscape.

Anwar Al-Ghassani
September 30, 2000