At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.

In your hands winteris a book with cloud pagesthat snow pearls of love.

In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.

It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence.

Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.

The story of the American Civil War is essentially one of human beings––Northerners, Southerners, Blacks, Whites, men, women–– holding themselves accountable for the future of a nation.

In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

Millions cheer the warriorspilling blood across the ringwhile the one who stands for peaceis ridiculed and shamed.Must hearts forever sufferfrom ignorance and greed?Can bombs heal our soulsor set our spirits free?

Dreams dress us carefully in the colors of power and faith.

Varieties of angels, like varieties of love, are many.

A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmareto the jeweled vision of a life started anew.

Shine your soul with the same egoless humility as the rainbow and no matter where you go in this world or the next, love will find you, attend you, and bless you.

Poetry looking in the mirror sees art, and art looking in a mirror sings poetry.

In its essence, Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is one citizen’s soul-searing plea with his countrymen––Whites and Blacks––to recognize that racial disparities fueled by unwarranted bigotry were crippling America’s ability to...

History is a hermaphrodite with many distinguished lovers. We are neither mysteries nor strangers but the living breath of revelation made flesh by the unrestrained desires of a free and universal love. Universal me. Universal...

Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new…

Change is one of the scariest things in the world and yet it is also one of those variables of human existence that no one can avoid.

In my head this cruel unspeakable truth: that we battled and we cursed and we spilled each other’s blood, we relished our taste of hell and strangled heaven’s love.

In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to...

On faith’s battered back calm eyes etch prayers that cool a nation’s hot rage.

Between death and hell a bridge shining silver wings offers his soul hope.

Minister and writer Barbara Kaufmann has addressed the subject of guerrilla decontextualization on both the ‘Voices Compassionate Education’ website and on ‘Inner Michael’, where she offers the kind of insights into the spiritual aspects of...

And now we step to the rhythm of miracles.–from The Light, That Never Dies

With my ninth mind I resurrect my firstand dance slow to the music of my soul made new.

The dancing vortex of a sacred metaphor clashes horns and halos to make wounded music set to the tempo of a new era in brilliant labor.

This rose of pearl-coated infinity transformsthe diseased slums of a broken heartinto a palace made of psalms and gold.

Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of...

If it wasn’t for all those silver wings spread out to help you on your journey, you would’a been dead or someplace screamin’ in a nut house a long time ago.

The job facing American voters… in the days and years to come is to determine which hearts, minds and souls command those qualities best suited to unify a country rather than further divide it, to...

Hope drowned in shadowsemerges fiercely splendid––boldly angelic.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.

Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define...

In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace.

Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and...

Knowledge planted in truth grows in truth.Strength born of peace loses nothing to hate.

What is this slow blue dream of living, and this fevered death by dreaming?

Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.

Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mindmost of our colors are amazingly the same.

Classic romantic love is an emotional attraction between two individuals in which they may share a heightened awareness of mutual adoration. Erotic love, traditionally, has been described as shared sexual attraction.

How many fears came between us?Earthquakes, diseases, wars where hellrained smoldering pus from skies made of winged death.Horror tore this world asunder.While inside the bleeding smokeand beyond the shredded weeping fleshwe memorized tales of infinite...

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning...

Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.

Most of the more celebrated names among African-American authors, poets, and artists are known to the world because of their association with specific cultural arts movements.

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name...

In this quiet place on a quiet streetwhere no one ever finds usgently, lovingly, freedom gives back our pain.–from poem In a Quiet Place on a Quiet Street

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators...

I called it a baptism in flaming ink that forced me to shed my shyness about recognizing myself as a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in...