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.

The thorn is a bridge spanning the muddy depths of agony and sorrow so that one may on the other side dance to the drums of the rose of joy.

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

Movies can provide tear-inducing or comically-entertaining representations of love, but many agree that its deeper conflicting complexities often seem unfathomable.

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.

Although himself frequently a target of guerrilla decontextualization, a major part of the meaning of Michael Jackson's life was to help balance the accumulation of horrors with something closer to love in its most empowering and healing sense.

While it is unlikely that poetry or art shall eliminate the reality of war in the twenty-first century, it is thrilling to know there remain individuals, and even entire communities, still willing to invest in art and poetry's own uniquely explosive contributions to the great, and small, dramas of human history.