The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people.The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful also, is the sun. ...

Baby Boy is a veteran his bad leg, his paunch are scars. He remembered when South Baltimore was hell and risk for blacks at night; he...

Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/ Historical sound pictures on New Bird wings ...

And the orator said, Speak to us of Freedom, And he answered; At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself...

Landlord, landlord, My roof has sprung a leak. Don’t you ‘member I told you about it Way last week?Landlord, landlord, These steps is...

Chick Webb and Billy Strayhorn moved inside our heads with sound. They danced with shoes that hit around invisible points where rhythm...

And the woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even...

How did it feel, Mary, Womb heavy with Christ Child, Tasting the dust of uncertain journey? Were you afraid? When, winding the...

Voices in the dark, you know the ones, they have you tossing and turning searching for that perfect spot on the pillow while you lie...

these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don’t fit in little pretty places.  these hips are free hips. they don’t...

Wine-maiden Of the jazz-tuned night Lips Sweet as purple dew, Breast Like pillows of all sweet dreams, Who crushed The grapes of joy And...

Number runner Come to my door. I had swore I wouldn’t play no more. He said, Madam, 6-0-2 Looks like a likely Hit for you. I said, Last...

let all poems speak and address themselves let each phrase like hair on a head comb itself back madame walker style let the love poems...

Whose children are these? Who do these children belong to? With no power to watch over, He looks at them, sleeping, Exhaustion...

Poems are not places. There are no maps for centuries where the geography of skin is anonymous in memory. I am a second hand dream in...

Billie Holiday’s burned voice had as many shadows as lights, a  mournful candelabra against a sleek piano the gardenia her signature...

In the highflown language Of moon travelers Social scientist sort our hearts- Add their smog-crippled vision- And rearrange our private...

Right now a moment in time is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become...

For those of us at the shoreline standing upon the constant edge of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot induldge the...

Dexter Gordon’s tenor sax plays “April in Pairs” inside my head all the way back on the bus from Double Bay. Round Midnight, the 50’s,...