Strange Fruit

The shame of being human sometimes is overwhelming.

The hypocrisy of the word humane makes my stomach turn.

 Our savagery is sustained by a flag of rotten ideals.

 

But how to distinguish which ideals are rotten

Which ideals are beginning to rot

Which ideals will surely expire before we notice any smell emanating.

Which ideals will go from a fragrant fruit to rotten flesh...

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body 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,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

(Strange Fruit is a Poem by Abel Meeropol and sang by Billie Holiday)

Scared to Dream

To die, to sleep...
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

 

Sisyphe-Kafka

Ceux mêmes qui l'entourent [Arpenteur K.] ne peut imaginer un autre souci que celui qui le ronge. Ceux mêmes qui l'entourent s'éprennent de ce vide et ce douleur qui n'a pas de nom, comme si la souffrance revêtait ici un visage privilégie. Camus parlant de Kafka.

But perhaps there is a privilege to understand: to understand and not become fully lost to which is observed and experienced... : The great patrimony of  existentialism.

La Vie Dans les Plis

Souvent il arrive que je me jette en avant 

comme la mer sur la plage. Mais je ne sais encore que faire. 

Je me jette en avant, je reviens en arrière, 

 je me jette à nouveau en avant.  H. M.

We know what to do: our timidity takes control and we end up oppressed by the shore.