Strange Fruit
06/21/2005 06:01 a.m.
This song mesmerizes me. Billie holiday sung it, and as she did with every piece she sung, she fills it with pain and emotion transparent to any red blooded human who won't turn a blind eye. What a horror, to have such a mark upon our "civilized" history. The lynching of african american men for everything from murder to looking at a white woman the "wrong" way.

I don't think one needs to be black to care, nor do they need to be amercian to feel ashamed.


Strange Fruit
-Lewis Allen

Southern trees
bear a strange fruit,
blood on the leaves
and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging
in the Southern breeze,
strange fruit hanging
from the poplar trees.


Pastoral scene
of the gallant South,
the bulging eyes
and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia
sweet and fresh,
and the sudden smell
of burning flesh!


Here is a fruit
for the crows to pluck,
for the rain to gather,
for the wind to suck,
for the sun to rot,
for a tree to drop,
here is a strange
and bitter crop.

I am listening to guess.