This Strange Fruit

Stumbling Down an Alley in Dubai, I Heard the Darkness Weeping

Tropic of Luciverium,
or Notes On Topological Pattern Complexity and Sand-Demons on Horseback
by Joseph Armstead


I don't like to travel.  As it was once
written in a proverb,
"It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive."


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sync attempt incomplete...

A forty-five minute mass transit train ride
spent in agony sitting next to a young woman
journalling in her internet blog,
bitterly cursing all the while
about her job and her boyfriend,
via an App on her sleek and wedge-shaped
fifth-generation mobile phone,
ends with disembarking at the station platform
and immediately dropping my briefcase,
all the contents spilling out onto the scratched
and boot-heel streaked tile floor.

It's Wednesday and the sky is gray
while cascading waves of cold wet drizzle
ride the polluted breeze from off the Bay.

... there is a rip in the firmament
and the teeming viruses of Multiplicity
are seeping through from the festering
petri dish of the Great Unknown...

Ninety-six hundred miles away,
it is just after four in the afternoon
and the remnants of the searing heat
that had assaulted
the cracked and baked
desert plateau
begins to dissipate
as winter's shorter daylight hours
ensnare the sun and pull it towards
the undulating dark line
of sand dunes
on the far horizon...
a slender woman, enervated
by her busy schedule, draped
in a charcoal black Abaya cloak
reads from her electronic tablet's
high resolution multi-touch display
and sighs her disappointment
to the evening's wind. 

... entries replicate without reason,
unbidden, the resident algorithm aborting,
then unexpectedly restarting, pre-planned
pattern asymmetry not engaging, resulting
in header line database corruption... 

On this side of the Meridian,
it is Thursday and only an hour
before a lightning strike created
by a massive sandstorm fries
the sophisticated circuitry
of the city's central
telecommunications tower. 

... the open wound in the wall of Singularity
bleeds a torrent of toxic infection,
rampant Randomnicity,
past its ragged lips and into
this unsuspecting Pocket Universe...

There is no full backup from which to restore.

Irritably, I start scooping up the spilled
chaotic mess of loose papers, pens, uncapped thumb drives,
and self-burned DVD media, shoving it all back
into the briefcase, and rise from my knees ---

To suddenly stand face to face
with you
and surprisedly, nakedly
stare,
without guile or ego,
into your eyes
as you rush over to help.

For a long heartbeat, we lock gazes...

Upload link reconnected.  Replication re-engaged, Synchronization resumed.

I still do not enjoy traveling, but some destinations are, indeed, magical.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Saharawi Women Garnet Dress, Desert Background" by Outsiderzone (Fernando Cortes), dreamstime_l_15844713.jpg 

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The Whisper of the Djinn at Deepening Dusk
by Joseph Armstead


Like some dread messenger
of vanishing hope,
night descends over the oasis.

Mile-long tangerine streaks stripe
the cloudless oceanic sky
as the mechanical caravansarai
settles in for the night,
the coughing of combustion engines
harshly competing with the rattling
of the day's last dry breeze
through desert thorn bushes
and spiky clumps of fountaingrass,
the distant call of a falcon
brittle as glass to the ears,
and a small army of khaki-clad
travelers, five hours riding across sand dunes,
spill out from their dusty vehicles,
their sunburned faces hidden
under soiled bandanas,
they are glad to unfold
their sweat-dappled bodies
and stretch their stiffened limbs.

Soundless,
something calls to them,
a susurration
from within
the Well of Time.
 
They have come to the necropolis,
abandoned last bastion
of a forgotten empire,
to listen to the dying whispers
of the slumbering djinn. 

"What would you have of me, my master,
what favor will satisfy thy heart's desire?"

Within the fractured, crumbling walls
of the fallen fortress, the shadows
of ancient myth twist and contort fitfully,
displeased with the intrusion
of The Living into their static domain.
In the rubble and dust lie the corpses
of rumors, entreaties, demands, threats,
and the faithless promises
of Kings and Pharoahs,
the dessicated bones of humankind
left as an offering
to sorcerous legends
and fantastical beings.

"What wouldst thou have of me, my master,
what favor will satisfy thy heart's desire?"

As the shadows lengthen, the teeming cadre
of explorers pitch tents and set up their camp,
eager to start the new morning
digging in the dirt,
ripping the secrets of antiquity
from out the skeletal grasp
of ghosts of a faded world.

The dread messenger arrives
and the cloak of night descends,
enwrapping the oasis
under the baleful glare
of the spectral djinn.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Desert Ruins" by Kyolshin, dreamstime_m_12546359.jpg   

The Revels of Abandonment, So Like A Blaring Of Trumpets

To Gethsemane Do We Devils March
by Joseph Armstead


As I pass the headstones
in the cemetery
I think of rain
falling on the meadow
over the hill
and the flash of light
off the drops
speckling
the fenders of my bicycle
are rhinestones;
I am a child in transition,
a thumbtack
on the corkboard
of Realities,
wading through water soaked grass
down a trail
through a silent
necropolis...

To Gethsemane do we Devils March.  

In the heart of the labyrinth,
howling wind erases my voice,
music of the spheres
cast in case-hardened steel,
set upon the double-cut teeth
of a diamond file.
I am an armored Priest
of the Church of Anguish
and my flock is gathered here
for a sermon
speaking of those things
we are driven to do
by urges from the darkness.

Promises festoon our shields
in the dazzling light of the sun
like steel spikes
glistening silver
and
I give the column the command
to move forward in rigid
formation ...

It is the cadence of a drumbeat,
the rhythmic march
of a thousand feet
upon cracked and dry
desert sands,
an army with a million eyes
and a single mind,
focused on a fractured image
from a half-remembered dream.

To Gethsemane do we Devils March.

A child I was, a dirtied bauble
dropped
to roll across the floor
of Infinity,
unaware of its importance
or its identity
as part of the necklace
draped around the neck
of Possibility.

The memory of the cemetery headstones
haunt me, whispering in an aged croak:
"I beg of you, do not abandon me
to the fury of the storm."

There is no answer.

To Gethsemane Do We Devils March...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "On the Merzouga Desert" by Nuriajudit (Nuria Abad Redondo), dreamstime_m_12275636.jpg

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The Cadence of Her Breath, Echoing, At the Cliff's Edge
by Joseph Armstead


The rhythm of the waves at the shore
...rolling surf under wintry skies...
the pounding of her heart's beat in her ears
...her memory bleeding in drops of mercury...

She knows how it feels when the world turns cold,
She knows where it was when the walls fell down,
She recalls who she was when the fractures widened,
And she remembers all the choices she ignored ---

--- the world stops spinning between each of her breaths.

The pain is her private symphony of hushed tyranny.

Standing
at the edge of the abyss,
breathing tragedy and sorcery,
confusion echoes
in the hollow corridors
of her crowded mind,
She's falling, falling faster
her speeding descent
steeling away
each precious new draught
of air...

breathing the atmosphere
while tainting the atmosphere
while piercing the atmosphere,
slipstreaming,
timesliding,
skyweeping,
as the ocean above
so the ocean below...

She knows how it looks standing alone
on the edge of the precipice
And she anticipates the shattering
impact
when she breaks apart,
when she finally strikes
the tideswept shoreline ---

--- each of her breaths stops the world from spinning.

Falling, she dances to a private symphony of hushed tyranny.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "My Smoke, My Risk, My Pleasure" by Novic (Armen Zhenikeyev), dreamstime_m_2757826.jpg

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An Orchard of Cannibal Wolves
by Joseph Armstead


Alone, atop the hill, The Traveler 
peers down through the gloom,
looking into the depths of the city...

Liquid evening descends
and drapes itself,
like waves of wet eternity
bleeding with surety
from an open wound
in the body of Creation,
spreading irresistably
across a rolling landscape
of city skylines
while the wind
whistles hollowly
through the steel parapets
of the midnight metropolis,
a pin cushion landscape.

It is an orchard of teeming Life,
surrendering again to the rhythm
of a recurring hibernation.

The Traveler keeps his distance.

Wolves gather at the forest's edge,
footsteps from The Travelers back.

They are hungry, battered and ragged
from the rigors of an endless Winter.
Feral lupines, eyes alight
with anticipation of the hunt,
their muzzles wrinkled
against an onslaught of smells
from the city beyond,
The Traveler's presence
is secondary to them,
an after-thought...

Their prey slumbers under shadow,
unsuspecting, unmindful,
and unprepared, drowning
in an ocean of dreaming.

The Traveler keeps his distance.

The wolf-pack flows past him,
focused on the reaping to come,
moving quietly as relentless Time,
rushing silent
past a rock, immobile,
centered
in an icy stream.

Fangs shining in the moonlight,
down into the darkened city they flow...

A cruel Harvest has come to the orchard.

As ever, The Traveler keeps his distance.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Wolves Pack with Moon" by Saniphoto, dreamstime_m_10652971.jpg

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Sylvia Shines Like A Dagger In the Sun
by Joseph Armstead


It is like a movie,
made from someone else's
train-wreck romance...

We all play our parts.

Jazz guitar and saxophone
waft through the air,
dancing with the incoming fog
from off the bay on the dusk
of a passing spring day,
music drifting softly
from the open window
of the car parked at the edge
of the meadow at the marina,
and I look past her face,
where sunset casts
gentle flames
across her smooth skin,
and a breeze
from off the tumbling waves
tosses the reddish-auburn
serpents of her hair,
while I remember the lie
I caught her in,
remember seeing her
locked in intimate embrace
with a stranger
who made her smile
with a fierce satisfaction
and feline freedom,
I could never inspire.
Gently, my name spills
from her smiling lips
and the falseness of the sound
cuts me deeply as the slice
from an assassin's dagger.

Little murders dance behind
the musical soundtrack
to our foreign film
masquerade
of a picnic.

We all play our parts.   

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Woman with Finger Blades" by Vukvuk (Branislav Ostojic), dreamstime_m_20566903.jpg

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Twilight Weeping Moonglow on the Stones of Her Heart
by Joseph Armstead


twilight,
next to a stream,
cool water rushing
over smooth black rock
lodged deep
in sand and silt,
as the evening wind
blows gently
across the moving, wet liquid
bringing the scent of roses,
juniper and cherry blossom
to spiral around the weeping girl
listening to jazz
on headphones,
tears falling
onto denim jeans,
she hopes the music
will wash away
her sadness
and grief

alone
on the branch
of a nearby tree,
a crow watches,
incurious,
through cold,
ruby red
eyes,
the sparkle of moonlight
on teardrops
mesmerizing

jazz plays on,
Mingus, Coleman, Coltrane,
dissonant, polyrythmic

the waters of the stream,
bathed in dim moonglow,
never stop to look back

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Waterfall at Night at Sunset" by Udra11, dreamstime_m_19419488.jpg

Truth Is Watching Sandcastles Drown In a Torrent of Tears

Strangling Eagles
By Joseph Armstead



Astride the Towers of Reason,
suffocating
in the clouds most high,
We're the lightning
that drives the heartbeats
of the Angels who kill things
too beautiful to eat;
How sharper than a lion's tooth,
more savage than a rhino's horn,
More faithless
than a motel romance,
Slicker than a thief
picking pockets,
We few standing breathless
in the rarified atmosphere
sing "Glory hallelujah!",
our voices masked by the roar
of the Beasts at our feet.

We'll give you the black symphony
of broken love and willful lies,
rumours of a faded postcard Heaven
where miracles
are never
what they seem
A kiss of Decomposition,
Welcome to the Choir,
neither Salvation
nor its Dream.

Brave enough to believe,
strong enough to be crazy,
We see rewards for these Faithful
despite their feet of clay,
despite the pools of bleeding
innocence
drawing them deeper
into the quagmire.

Save us...

Reflections of the Towers
shimmer in the quicksand muck,
too dark to see the gates of Heaven
too distorted to find Revelation,
We breathe the air too thin to nourish,
asthmatic airways straining,
and we wait for you to tell us
just what you believe in now.

Windblind, the beasts look up.

We are Wonder.  We are Divinity.
We are Mercy with a sucking chest wound.
We're the lightning
that drives the heartbeats
of Angels who kill the things
too beautiful to eat.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Night Moon Over Mountain Eagle" by Truelight9 (Dan Collier), dreamstime_m_1850501.jpg

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As Midnight Wounds the Day
by Joseph Armstead


Like chariots of stone racing 'round the sun,
the planets follow a Sacred Geometry
defined long before the dawn of Memory,
an imperfect dream that hypnotizes, mesmerizes,
and taunts us with the promise of Heaven,
as we sail along, voyagers through Time,
our vision draws our gaze towards the lights
that burn the ocean of the dark...

The timepiece is broken.

Beautiful and yet Damned,
Innocent yet stained by Sin,
we are children of the madness
drawn to the edge of sharpened steel,

clickclackclickclackclickclackclickclack

each tick of the clock,
the sound of a cosmic metronome
channeled though a guitar's phase-shifter,
kills another piece of the universe,

tocktocktocktocktocktocktocktocktocktock

and our miracles grow darker by the hour
while we drift around a star
that is slowly dying.

As midnight wounds the day,
the blood of fools paints a tapestry
of myth and loss and sadness,
as midnight drapes
the hourglass
in shadows. 

We are born from angels, kin to ice and flame,
diamonds in the rough, we raise our eyes
to a sky grown dark with prayers,
the leaden gates to Paradise
rusted and graffitied,
we sail along, voyagers through Time,

(sshoosh... the electron winds blow cold
over a sea of fading minutes ... whoosshh!)

dancing 'round bonfires
searing holes in the ocean of the dark,
our seething miracles
betray the shadows
birthed within us...
the timepiece is broken.

And eternal midnight wounds the day.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_10382320.jpg

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Shadow on the Surf
by Joseph Armstead


Surge in, slip out,
rolling, rushing, swirling,
the seagulls gather,
their mottled white bodies
bobbing
like torn confetti
cast carelessly
upon the restless waters...

The dry fierceness
of midday's heat
emanates and radiates
from the windswept beach
as footsteps
puncture
its pristine
dunes,
inexorably leading
to the mercurial
liquidity
of the cool,
tidal waters
carrying ghosts
from distant lands
into the dark kingdom
of my looming shadow.

Empire and Dominion,
arrogant whimsies born
from Time and Ego,
washed away from Memory
by the accusation
from a goodbye kiss.

Rush in, roll away out,
surging, swirling, frothing,
the seagulls chatter
and screech,
bobbing on the waves
like loose pages
torn from an old calendar.

The date doesn't matter.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Coast and Night Moonlight Path" by Wildman (Yuriy Brykaylo), dreamstime_m_5982022.jpg

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Actualization
by Joseph Armstead



This is going to hurt.

Peering through squinted eyes,
cold sweat pouring
down a wrinkled forehead,
watching the cruel sharpness
of a drill bit rapidly rotate
only millimeters from this face,
the inevitability of invasive,
unrelenting, brutal honesty
smelling of oil and metal
as it closes the distance
towards trembling flesh,
it is
an hourglass
heralding doom
with every
falling
grain of
sand,
this is
belief,
metaphysics
made real,
stripped
of intellect,
philosophy
and
metaphor,
pain become truth,
savagery ascendent.

The drill comes nearer,
the buzzing of the electric motor
growing louder than thunder, louder
than the pounding
of your racing
heart.

This is going to hurt.

A lot.

Good.

This is how we learn.
 
Peering through squinted eyes,
cold sweat pouring
over a wrinkled brow ridge,
breathing quickly
and shallowly
through distended nostrils,
belly full of angry worms
and hysterical
mosquitos,
lips cracked and dry,
this is Faith,
Reality
and
Knowledge.

Lightning flashes as the drill bites deep...

Applauding
would be
in such bad taste.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid" by Iqoncept, dreamstime_m_18682831

A Pinwheel Theory of Chemical Dreaming

Fire Drawn To A Bloom
by Joseph Armstead


the crash is electric,
burning invisibly
in an ocean of coolness

...majesty and fury...
...nature and physics...

and the scent of
burnt copper
on the howling wind
dances a tango
with the fragrance
from an autumn blossom

Awakened from her dark dreaming,
the Lady Fair draws a breath,
tasting the Real,
inhaling the detritus
of Time,
and gathers courage
to face the tempest.

an angel disguised
as a butterfly
alights on the bloom,
the stalk bounces,
bending from the ephemeral weight
 
...seeing, seeking...
...tasting, feeling...

and the storm fans
petal and wing
with a kiss of fire

She dances on the edges
of the lightning's
strike,
alive with the brutal ripping
of molecular chemistry,
and she sees deeper
into the world's dark heart
than ever she did before,
knowing,
this time,
that the white-hot lash
of a raging Heaven
holds no secrets
to her final destiny.

the dichotomy of nature intoxicates and strangles

the butterfly
and the flower
quake as one under skies
split by
the glint of Truth
in the brilliance
of God's eyes.

The Lady Fair
peers into the gloom
of the approaching maelstrom
awaiting her one good moment
in the glare of the bleeding sun... 

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Fire Flower" by Ba-Mi, dreamstime_m_15616773.jpg

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And No One Can Know That You're Bleeding
by Joseph rmstead



It is hurt.

(imagery)

...the tarnished, golden halls of kings, tarts and dreams...
...a corridor to purpled midnight fading to black...

pain be not common -- a slow leak in a torn heart

It is a scent of nostalgia
and abandoned love letters,
a decaying bouquet
of murmuring flowers,
weeping secrets
into the cool, gurgling flow
of the brook of night,
shadowed water,
as nightingales war with crows,
each singing brittle music
heralding the death
of weary daylight,
the sounds
less heard than smelled,
a perfume
that casts a spell
of events
and emotions
that run too deeply
for mere melancholy
under gloom-dappled skin.

(sensation)

... palace intrigue: the upheaval of a sacred avarice...
... a lost child kicks a tin can down a secret road...

pain be not proud -- a storm of wounds that lingers

It is hurt.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Wounded Heart" by Sundikova (Liudmila Sundikova), dreamstime_m_5489869

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Covenant in Acid Shadow
by Joseph Armstead


The music of my voice is
unheard.
Listen.
We have all come to the Gathering,
here,
in the velvetness of aloneness,
today,
to speak of things we have lost,
And of the friends
we continue to miss,
still unheard.
Listen.
 
The danger in this
is its promise
of addiction.
There are no safe havens.
No future born from past glories.
No hearth, no home,
no sanctuary.
 
No guarantee of Heaven.
 
I've a confession to make
and the nightmare in it
is the soundless symphony
streaming from my lips,
my voice,
unheard,
dreamtime betrayed,
A treachery of adulthood
where we pray to the great Unmaker
And wait, happily, for the fury
of the coming storm.
 
Listen...

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Silhouettes and Shadows of People" by Emersont (Terrance Emerson), dreamstime_m_16832042

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Dissembled Vision
By Joseph Armstead



So I saw something out the corner of my

reddened and weary eye,
something moving with fluid,
serpentine
stealth

while, in the cluttered living room,
by the flickering light projected from my
flatscreen LED television,
a politician dolefully discussed
the latest details of the budgetary downturn,
blubbery lips caressing each syllable
in his grim divinations
and
all his words the music of innuendo
as he played the Blame Game,
endorsing the faux-ideas recycled
from a talking head politico from his own party
some twenty-five years past,
that thing

hallucination ... shadow ... apparition ... revenant...

that ghost I saw dancing at the edges
of my blurred vision,
played with the dollar sign emblem
on its gaudy gold jewelry,
hip hop gauche,
a sight gag from a joke reel
in a B-grade movie
no one ever filmed.

I blinked and an alternate
Reality
fell in crumbled

pieces

from out my eye.

Ain't that the way?  You always have problems.

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Optical Art Eyes Fractal" by Cvadrat, dreamstime_m_5365885.jpg

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Substance of Thunder
by Joseph Armstead



the voice, thunderous, echoes in the spaces between the clouds,
lashing like a whip of lightning through the open air,
ripping dream from the dreamer,
piercing the fragile veil of expectancy

Sequence acquisition, Countdown begins, initiate...

super-particles caught on the coherent string
of a randerized web suspended in ultra-symmetric solution
dissolve
falling prey
to the decomposition
of gravimetric membranes
in assymetric chronological orbit

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- Echo

Launch:

memories of the last moment of tactile sensation,
transmission of subconscious intimacy
set to fading music, phantom rhythms spiralling
out
of
control
while the tears burn
wet highways down the map of her face

the voice, like the blast of a canon,
like the passing of celestial Judgment,
rockets across an arid desert
of endless guilt,
demanding your attention,
naming your sin,
calling you,
stripping you naked,
and you tremble in shame.

Fatal error.  Sequence abort.  System failure.     

 

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Man Ego Accuse Concept" by Drx (darkonovakovic), dreamstime_m_2376696.jpg

Headshot Rhapsody: Pitbulls On Parade

11th & Madison Is Burning
by Joseph Armstead

Smoke waves atop the air like a flag,
11th and Madison is burning.

Justification
for the silicon nation,
media barons and arms salesmen,
dealmaking and muck-raking, secret tribunals
and drive-by funerals,
it's a prayer wrapped in chain-mail,
education for eradication,
and all the pretty college girls
believe they should testify,
as the clean faces of a suburban jury
in-session and without peer.  

As she marches she sings like a bird,
light and soulful, earnest and true,
ethereal,
as wailing sirens
and flashing red
police car signal lamps
join her song in a shrieking choir...

Smoke waves atop the air like a flag,
11th and Madison is burning.

In the morning sun,
new sun/new light/new day, open eyes,
(newness like a sword from on-high), 
the sounds of voices,

voices ... trumpeting anger/trumpeting change,

a petition for justice,
the hint of retribution
in the music behind the words,
vox populi, rhythm of the boulevards,
throat music raised in protest,
carousel of free-form judgment,
the clock ticks away the morning
as raised fists create a new skyline...

Smoke waves atop the air like a flag,
11th and Madison is burning.

A burning bed of nails
is a platform for evolution,
a revolution under the skin,
Justification
for the silicon nation,
it's a prayer wrapped in chain-mail,
education for eradication,
and all the pretty college girls
just know they gotta testify,
and the song of the mockingbird
isn't pretty at all anymore,
light and soulful, earnest and true,
and lost in the ruckus of battle.

11th and Madison is burning.

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(Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Protesting Man Pointing His Fist" by Alehnia, dreamstime_10175340.jpg)

This Strange Fruit is a Thing of Monstrous Wonder...

 

There is a history to it, to the title of this blog-magazine: "Strange Fruit".   More than a little metaphorical and more than a little condemnatory, the term "strange fruit" has come to contain a sad and ominous subtext.

 "Strange Fruit" was a jazz song performed most recognizably by the legendary singer Billie Holliday and it was a thinly-veiled condemnation of racism, particularly referring to the then not-uncommon, heinous act of lynching African Americans, in 1930s America.   The first iteration of the song began as a poem written by a Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx named Abel Meeropol.   He wrote that poem out of his outrage about the lynching of two black men, but such were the times that he published it under the pen name Lewis Allan to protect himself and his family from reprisals. 

Meeropol wrote "Strange Fruit" after seeing Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. It was published under Meeropol's pseudonym in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine.  Meeropol/Allan had in the past had other of his poems become songs, the words set to music, but he was inspired to set Strange Fruit to music himself. The song gained a limited regional popularity as a protest song in and around the New York area.  At one point, Meeropol, his wife, and black vocalist Laura Duncan even performed it at Madison Square Garden.  It was entrepeneur Barney Josephson, the generally-recognized founder of Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, perhaps New York city's first integrated nightclub, who, after hearing the song, introduced it to jazz songstress Billie Holiday.  Ms. Holiday performed the song at Josephson's Cafe Society in 1939.

Many decades later, in 2005, composer Chandler Carter and the librettist Joan Ross Sorkin crafted "Strange Fruit" as a two-act opera for the New York City Opera as an adaption from author Lillian Eugenia Smith’s (a white southern liberal who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality ) 1944 novel about an interracial romance in a small-town in Georgia in the 1920s.  The opera had its premiere production in 2007 at the Long Leaf Opera in Chapel Hill, N.C..

But, now that you know all that, it must be said that this blog-magazine is about NONE of that... at least not directly. 

It IS about the strange and the different, about the outcast and the outlaw, about the mutated and the misshapen in modern literature, not just limited to poetry.

Readers of this blog are going on a journey to places unfamiliar, peculiar and sometimes downright alien.  This isn't the kind of writing you read over a civilized cup of tea (two sugars,please!) before donning your wide-brim straw hat and tending to your azalea's or your tomato garden in the gentle morning's sunlight.   Uh-unh.  This is stronger stuff than that, darker, slightly more insidious, and unsafe.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.  If you're reading this, then you've probably read some other of my work.   You know what I'm about.   And if this is your first time seeing my name and reading the eccentric outpourings from my mind, well... don't be afraid of the dark, children.

Be prepared.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Rambutans" by Espion, dreamstime_5226879.jpg