Food is scarce, air is stale,

Callous are his fingertips, bleeding to the bone.

Dark is the room, haunted is the house,

Abandoned is the neighbourhood

Though this man is not.

Old man guitarist,

The children would cry

Bony old fingers, slender and wasted,

Though dextrous and skilled.

Sliding his hands over those jagged strings,

He hums the bittersweet tune

That his deafness emits. 

His torso curved as the shape of the guitar,

Hair as scant as a desert shrub,

His hands move with vigour and verve

Taming the song of his heart;

He was old man guitarist.

“Koorah, koorah!”

His chapped lips would blabber

Strumming with passion

But not with regret.

“Koroo, koroo!”

As his cheeks would broaden

Strumming with passion,

Singing with ease,

Playing with joy…

He screamed, he cried

He threw down his arms and babbled,

“I’m the flamenco guitarist,

Singing by the window,

Hear me sing

These forbidden words

Gone and banished by sin.”

He heard not a word that he spoke

Strumming those golden strings,

He waited for the sunrise

When the world would come flooding in.

He danced and twirled,

Laughed and smiled,

Like the child he used to be.

“The music is my passion,

The music is my life.

Take this away from me,

And surely I will die.

You took my home and stole my life

Yet I sit here alive, my friend,

To teach you the greatest lesson of all.

He waited for the audience,

That would applaud and appreciate him

He waited for his family,

Who would have him return

He waited for the end,

When his guitar would live

Beyond him

Forever shall I live on.