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.

Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.

To create art with all the passion in one’s soul is to live art with all the beauty in one’s heart.

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.

Because Mr. Mandela’s early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.

Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

Within the universe of the extraordinary, those qualities we designate to human concepts of gender are often shared, exchanged, or even completely obliterated. Because of this mixture of traits, these twins called Genius and Madness...

It [freedom] rings bells to remind humanity that the most precious gifts in life––like children and love and time––must never be taken for granted.

The best of humanity’s recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in...

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.

Stars ink your fingerswith a lexicon of flameblazing rare knowledge.

Just above our terror, the stars painted this storyin perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too oftenabused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.

On either side of a potentially violent conflict, an opportunity exists to exercise compassion and diminish fear based on recognition of each other’s humanity. Without such recognition, fear fueled by uninformed assumptions, cultural prejudice, desperation...

Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams…

Many people can rightfully claim, as much as anyone can rightfully claim anything, that much of their lives have been spent stumbling through a cloud of cluelessness.

What a lover’s heart knows let no man’s brain dispute.

The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passion–– cools your fears with peace.

Death wins nothing here,gnawing wings that amputate––then spread, lift up, fly.

Art gives its vision to beauty not always recognized. And it surrenders freely — whatever power it possesses to every sincere soul that seeks it. But above all else–it presents us with the gift of...

Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.

Time (again, Time) like the soul, wears many faces, many bodies and climates and attitudes. The past is one face, the present a second and the future yet another.

Human beings, in a sense, may be thought of as multidimensional creatures composed of such poetic considerations as the individual need for self-realization, subdued passions for overwhelming beauty, and a hunger for meaning beyond the...

First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.

Millions of tears have fallen for black sons, brothers, lovers, and friends whose assailants took or maimed their lives and then simply went on their way.

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