Strange Fruit a la Blake

Nigger, nigger,
hanging from the tree
how you Christian white folk smiled
your work to see,
strange fruit dangling among the leaves.

Did God smile
your work to see?
Did He who made the nigger
make thee?

“Oh come on, white folk,
gather round;
watch the nigger
flail above the ground.

Come on
you pretty young girls,
in your flour sack cotton dresses,
giggle while the nigger
swing by his tresses.”

As the nigger burns
I see your faces
smiling gleefully
in various places.

Was there no pity
for the lamb?
Did He, too, receive
the scorn of man?

Oh, nigger, nigger,
burning bright
in the forest of the night --

Did He smile
this work to see?
Did He who made the nigger
make thee?

by Ken Thomas