Samoud Ray

Steven Katsineris with a poem from April 1996.

Whenever I think of you, which is often
I think of all that we share.
It matters not that we’ve never met,
I feel like we know each other
like some human beings never know each other.
 
We have a common commitment
and an empathy
born of a shared outlook,
experiences and aspirations. 

I am in pain at visualising you caged.
And I rage against the system that keeps you
and other brothers and sisters
locked and chained.

Some nights I dream of you
and in my dreams you are always free.
You are hugging and laughing
with your friends and family. 

And you are with me,
we sit together at a table,
talking and trying to make up for
all the lost years,
drinking, eating, looking
at each other and smiling.

You know that,
those who hold you,
those who oppress,
will never, ever,
be alive like you are.
Nor ever know the love
or freedom you have known.
 

  • Samoud - Arabic for tenacity, steadfast, resistance.
  • Ray Luc Levasseur is of French Canadian background and a political prisoner who was imprisoned in a sensory deprivation isolation cell 22 hours a day at the ADX control unit prison at Florence, Colorado, USA. He was one of over 100 radical political prisoners held in the USA. He was released in November 2004, after 20 years of confinement.

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