I DREAMED OF HENDRIX
The white ones unwarranted,
hardly a one cared much for
a colored lad with long locks,
greedy for the guitar and
assorted girls, especially
during that goddamn War.
But I was born to rule
the blues, to do with it
whatever I chose. And I
would take that guitar
and I’d choke that son-
of-a-bitch. I even made
music with my mouth, by
taking those tiny strings
into my teeth, making them
sing like a sparrow on
its first outing into early-
April sun. And the people
didn’t know what to make
of me, a prodigious man, no,
a wild, black, prodigious
man controlling the band
stand. And I could not
cross the crowds that swarmed
like flies to the concerts, or
wherever I was performing
only to see me, witness
the magic of my every opus,
even in England, when
I was an ex-patriot. I
was angry as every average
person was at America’s
politics. I was ready for
a revolution long overdue.
I was propelled by the
plight of my people, called
‘colored’ then, but emerging.
I, well, put me in the place
like the parapet ready to
see the bottom rail rise
to the top as the Biblical
passage spoke of an oppressed
people. We were the only
ones, see, all of the Indians
wiped out, or, having lost
the distinction of individu-
ality. I needed that dumb
needle, and the coke in order
to cope with fame, and with
failure, too. It became as
perfunctory to me as an at-
omizer is to any woman
with night needs, having
to look to more than one
man to earn her quota
in money. I made music.
And, the music made me.
America wasn’t only fas-
cinated with that fat, lean
thing making an odd seam
down the length of my jeans,
it was also fascinated by
the slow, heavy weight of
a dark man dying by
the help of what it makes
available to that sinking
man’s hand, sometimes
in the notion of his needs,
this, as medicine, knowing
all the time it is dealing
death to him, in disguise
but my fame continues to
rise, all of those unusual
beats I brought, strange
chords, and other things
which made my music amusing.
But no marvelous man has
ever been alive to witness him-
self being made into a martyr,
neither me, Malcolm, nor
Martin. And even dead
sometimes, I find my form-
less mind befuddled by such
ambivalence, of how they
can kill a man in America
and canonize him after the kill.
—from Rattle #9, Summer 1998
__________
Willie James King: “I write only compelled to do so. Writing is hard, that is why I love it. Language is as difficult to control as any animal found in the deep, wild woods. They don’t conform. They hold to what they do best, no matter how we holler: Humanity! Humanity! And that is why I write; I might be able to speak not only for myself, but for those without a voice; or, who they think they are, etc.”
