The Poppies by Jaanika Talts (watermarked image, all rights reserved by the artist)

“The Universe said, ‘let me show your soul something beautiful.’”…

Poets (left to right): the late great Gerald Chan Sieg, Lee Alexander, and the late Captain Richard Vernon.  (archive photo from the Georgia Guardian)

Presented on Creative Thinkers International in honor of World Poetry Day 2013:…

"In Hypnotic Trance"

Please, sit and listen, the heart beats compassion;

The starving soul cries out for love and fairness...

— The key to the door — of world peace is justice!

To elevate consciousness' common senses

Is the major task of our Human Race...

— Of creative souls in free thinking minds —

Equally sharing the given Earth's goods;

— In intellectual development

Of technical, — omniform art, and…

             Cover of the award-winning poetry collection THE ESSENTIAL ETHERIDGE KNIGHT.

“We each have lessons to learn and to teach, and healing is something we all do together.”—David Bedrick (Talking Back to Dr.…

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.…

If in the midst of mannequin bombs



disemboweling pregnant insanity,

a poem of love should seduce your lips,…

Scholars, lovers, and the lonely-hearted all know poetry in their own way and all have their own very lovely relationships with it. But who have a more passionate relationship with poetry than poets themselves? These quotes are presented in honor of their voices and their inspiring dedication to "the flower of language."

“If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day.  For there would be…

From ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love





You are the man newly arriving

at history’s worm-ravaged door,

the woman whose shadows are salves

upon the bleeding breasts of the earth,…

“There is movement in the shadow of a sun that is old now. There, just there. Coming from the rim of the world.”

Toni Morrison, Family and History





The black and white photo shows you seated

in a wooden chair on the porch of a cabin

built likely by slaves, later inhabited by you:

Black American Woman Elsie Mary Bell Griffin.

One side of the image is shadowed

like the…

Korean poet Kim Chi-Ha.

Kim Chi-Ha is a Korean poet who was born in 1941 and whose dedication to the expressions of truth and courage in his work has cost him his freedom for most of his adult life. Thanks to modern translations of his poetry and some prose by dedicated…

(photo of "Could This Be Love," the painting by Kerry James Marshall featured on the cover of Body of Life by Elizabeth Alexander, courtesy of VivaUltra on Flickr.com)







Those of us––whether writers, editors, or production personnel––who long ago cast our professional lot with the publishing industry, know that it can be as volatile and unpredictable as any other. Unless you are sitting on a stack of raving reviews for a…

Coming in 2009: Collected Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black









EVERY HOUR HENCEFORTH





I know blackness as taught by my father:

“You are my joy and my genius,” he often said.

I know blackness as taught by my mother:

“Your smile is my robe of honor, your peace my earned grace.”



Once a year we were pilgrims driving from Atlanta

to Waycross where my brother and…

(Artwork by brothers Greg and Tim Hildebrandt)









1.

B.C.: With his brother’s blood wet on his hands,

Cain ran vomiting future sorrows of man.



Petals of gold cloud

swirled bright eternal letters

too soon forgotten.



2575-2467 B.C.: Immersed in themes of an unfolding story,

Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty blazed pyramids of glory.



Before time or space,…

(Archangel: artist unknown)



Poem From ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love





Gliding above the ruins of the world’s broken soul

destruction and mutation speak in parables of the

ignoble…

The shape of something uncaring and

perversely cold stands up inside a man

and he finds himself completely deceived.

Believing this world’s anguish is something

different from the love he keeps holding back.



There Is a story…

(Soulful art by Kahlil Gibran)





The world’s abundant treasury of art and literature would likely be a lot less abundant if not for those famed, or sometimes secret, patrons of the arts who assisted many of our most celebrated creative artists at crucial points in their lives––and sometimes throughout their lives. For visual artist Pablo Picasso, author and patron Gertrude Stein played a major role helping to launch his unparalleled…

One arm is a crystal-blue saxophone,

the other a platinum-feathered keyboard—

yours is the music that colors our dreams.



Sunday afternoon and the jazz angel cometh

tap-dancing philosophies of the drum-roll

over a…

Poet Aime Cesaire



Along with the former president of Senegal, Leopold Senghor, and French Guianian Leon Damas, Aimé Césaire during the 1930s and 1940s was one of the founding fathers of the worldwide cultural, spiritual, and political movement knows as Negritude. Césaire, a celebrated poet-playwright, was born in French Martinique June 26, 1913, and died April 17, 2008, on the first official Poem in Your Pocket Day. In addition to his…

Often they open my eyes and shut down my fears.



Sometimes eat lunch naked on the White House lawn.



Build gigabyte nests in my heart like virtual swans.



Will not give you an STD or murder your grandparents.



Will not hack your heartbeat or…

Having no clue regarding what the future held for the late actor Heath Ledger, I wrote the following review of one of his last movies, CANDY, a year ago this week:



I watched the movie "Candy" because the description on back of the DVD made me think it might have something significant to say about how poets manage to cultivate their creative gifts in the face of the world's harsh and often unforgiving realities. It was…