Note: This is a combination of three poems in a series.
I see strange fruit
When I look to the trees
The blood on the leaves
Has dropped from the deceased
No Jiminy
But Geppetto’s on the strings
As Pinocchio conducts the piece
“Let Freedom Ring”
I see strange fruit
When I look in the streets
Diallo and Bell
Lay dead at my feet
Danger in my reflection
Fear beneath my sheets
Yet somehow I find
The courage to sleep
I see strange fruit
When I look at the screen
Trayvon’s life was taken
At a tender seventeen
An unarmed minor
Killed in self defense?
I refuse to believe
We are truly that dense
I see strange fruit
When I look at me
Societal fears
Claimed the lives of three
If a kid at seventeen
Is a menace to society
As I hit 26, tell me
What am I to thee?
I see strange fruit
When I look at my screen
I see cops with tanks
I see dead black teens
I see a story told before
Whenever will we learn?
The world still fears my pigment?
My worst nightmares confirmed
I saw strange fruit
On Pennsylvania Ave
A family in a fishbowl
And a tightrope for a path
Locked with indecision
The world hung on their words
Even in the highest office
Your dreams are still deferred
I see strange fruit
When I look to the streets
A twelve-year-old boy
Lays dead at my feet
Another man in Costume
With an afro and a sword
We count the shots that hit them
We have seen it all before
I see strange fruit
As I type on these keys
With Every Name That Makes The List
My heart starts to freeze
Till, Diallo, Bell, Martin
Davis, Brown, Hunt, Rice
The names of a chosen few
Who’ve fallen in this fight
I see strange fruit
When I look to the streets
All the innocent bodies
Laying dead at their feet
I hear cries for justice
I hear cries for peace
But who pays the cost
When “justice ain’t free”?
Since Pinocchio won
They’re no longer amused
See, the people are scared
Or annoyed, or confused
Although some were discouraged
Others far worse than rude
I see beacons of hope
When I look to the youth
I see marches for women
And marches for science
The environment, too
Screw the climate deniers
I see people happy
And proud in parades
I see dreams not deferred
I see champions for change
I saw strange fruit
When I looked to the trees
The blood on the leaves
Had dropped from the deceased
No Jiminy
But Geppetto on the strings
As Pinocchio conducted
“Let Freedom Ring”