β
Dare to love yourself
as if you were a rainbow
with gold at both ends.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
The words βI Love Youβ kill, and resurrect millions, in less than a second.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
You were born a child of lightβs wonderful secretβ you return to the beauty you have always been.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Each star is a mirror reflecting the truth inside you.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
What a loverβs heart knows let no manβs brain dispute.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Un-winged and naked, sorrow surrenders its crown to a throne called grace.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
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.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
This is what our love isββa sacred pattern of unbroken unity sewn flawlessly invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sunβs broken heart, power to restore the moonβs vision too.
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
If I say your voice is an amber waterfall in which I yearn to burn each day, if you eat my mouth like a mystical rose with powers of healing and damnation, If I confess that your body is the only civilization I long to experience⦠would it mean that we are close to knowing something about love?
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
History dressed up in the glow of loveβs kiss turned grief into beauty.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
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 humming haikus in heavenβs mouth.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
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 history as one long inglorious record of manβs inhumanity to man.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Souls reconstructed with faith transform agony into peace.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Quote words that affirm
all men and women are your
brothers and sisters.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something newβ¦
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
There is no envy, jealousy, or hatred between the different colors of the rainbow. And no fear either. Because each one exists to make the othersβ love more beautiful.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
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.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Your pain is a school unto itselfββ and your joy a lovely temple.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
In your hands winter
is a book with cloud pages
that snow pearls of love.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Hope drowned in shadows
emerges fiercely splendidββ
boldly angelic.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
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 a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
Now come the whispers
bearing bouquets of moonbeams
and sunlight tremblings.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Diversity is an aspect of human existence that cannot be eradicated by terrorism or war or self-consuming hatred. It can only be conquered by recognizing and claiming the wealth of values it represents for all.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.
β
β
Aberjhani
β
The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passionββ cools your fears with peace.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mind
most of our colors are amazingly the same.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
This worldβs anguish is no different
from the love we insist on holding back.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothersβ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Where humanity
sowed faith, hope, and unity,
joyβs garden blossomed.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
With my ninth mind I resurrect my first
and dance slow to the music of my soul made new.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Knowledge planted in truth grows in truth.
Strength born of peace loses nothing to hate.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
Just above our terror, the stars painted this story
in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.
β
β
Aberjhani (I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)
β
What hell condemned, let heaven now heal.
β
β
Aberjhani (Collected Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit oneβs beloved extended community.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Searching for a mind long lost I found it shaping colors and history near the cliffs of your heart.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black (HB Gift Edition))
β
Dreams dress us carefully in the colors of power and faith.
β
β
Aberjhani (I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)
β
Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Feet sandaled with dreams tread paths of vision leading to wisdomβs sharp peaks.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
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.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
And now we step to the rhythm of miracles.
--from The Light, That Never Dies
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
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.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
Making the choice to exercise compassion is an expression of Love for Humanity and Life itself.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.
β
β
W.E.B. Du Bois (The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois)
β
This rose of pearl-coated infinity transforms
the diseased slums of a broken heart
into a palace made of psalms and gold.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
--as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS
β
β
Abraham Lincoln
β
Love as a concrete foundation for an authentically functional civilization requires the around-the-clock labors of forgiveness. Without it, Love fails, Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
We ache with the yearning
that turns half into whole
and offer no excuses
for the beauty of our souls.
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
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 their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
In my head this cruel unspeakable truth: that we battled and we cursed and we spilled each otherβs blood, we relished our taste of hell and strangled heavenβs love.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
The Universe said, βLet me show
your soul something beautiful.
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
With its leaves so rich and heavy with elation and its crimson face made brighter with visions of divinity the shadow of a certain rose looks just like an angel eating light.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Poetry looking in the mirror sees art,
and art looking in a mirror sings poetry.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
There is within the human heart a quality of intelligence which has been known to surpass that attributed to the human mind.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Stars ink your fingers
with a lexicon of flame
blazing rare knowledge.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.βs 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 of weakness but gifts of significant strength.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
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 heal the wounds of a nation as opposed to aggravate its injuries, and to secure for the next generation a legacy of choices based on informed awareness rather than one of reactions based on unknowing fear.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.
β
β
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
β
Rainbows introduce us to reflections
of different beautiful possibilities
so we never forget that pain and grief
are not the final options in life.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession. The next sensible step would be to use them.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
The gentle pulsing and flickering of stars and nebulae made a kind of music, a sweet easy mesh of whispered tones and sighing harmonies that held him in its force like the earth [holding] the moon.
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
What can bombs know of the illuminated fields so golden with heaven in your heartβs sacred lands?
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Between death and hell a bridge shining silver wings offers his soul hope.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
We are not born to accommodate tyranny over our hearts, minds, bodies, or souls. We are here to confirm an abundance of love-inspired possibilities greater than such restrictions.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
History, too, has a penchant for giving birth
to itself over and over again, and those whom it
appoints agents of change and progress
do not always accept their destinies willingly.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Our greatest power as nations and individuals is not the ability
to employ assault weapons, suicide bombers, and drones
to destroy each other. The greater more creative powers
with which we may arm ourselves are grace and compassion
sufficient enough to love and save each other.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.
β
β
Aberjhani (Collected Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
The acknowledgement of a single possibility can change everything.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
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.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength
and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth
to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable
for the catastrophes rearranging their lives.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
We can cry for years but sometimes gotta smile too.
β
β
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black (HB Gift Edition))
β
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 of the 21st Century.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
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 to meet basic human needs, or the panicked uncertainty of the moment explodes into violence.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.
β
β
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
β
Millions cheer the warrior
spilling blood across the ring
while the one who stands for peace
is ridiculed and shamed.
Must hearts forever suffer
from ignorance and greed?
Can bombs heal our souls
or set our spirits free?
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist.
Pink dragonflies fall from the air
and become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks.
The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter.
Like the smile of a child separated
from his motherβs milk for the very first time.
--from poem Blood and Blossoms
β
β
Aberjhani (I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)
β
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 the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.
β
β
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
β
There is nothing sane, merciful, heroic, devout, redemptive, wise, holy, loving, peaceful, joyous, righteous, gracious, remotely spiritual, or worthy of praise where mass murder is concerned. We have been in this world long enough to know that by now and to understand that nonviolent conflict resolution informed by mutual compassion is the far better option.
β
β
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
β
The word 'survivor' carries a weight of remembrance that has broken the minds and bodies of more than a few men and women. It also contains a humbling light of recognition that compels many to do whatever they can to help reinforce the efforts of those who might be 'at risk' of not just giving up on their dreams, but of giving up on their continued existence.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
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 darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.
β
β
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)