All the world loves a ghost. The evidence of that simple statement can be found by looking in nearly every direction.

While many people like the idea of exercising unconditional love, most eventually find it too draining and impossible to sustain, often because the attempt to practice it is misunderstood, discouraged, brought under attack, or made a target of willful abuse. As sad as it may be to admit, in our modern world people are far more accustomed to hearing news of war, genocide, murder, disasters, famine, and disease than they are to hearing anything about acts of love or grace.

Here are lips of flame eager to be extinguished by love's liquid sigh.

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.

From her gospel-singing mother Cissy Houston, her legendary pop-diva cousin Dionne Warwick, and her Queen of Soul godmother Aretha Franklin, she [Whitney Houston] inherited gifts for skillfully interpreting lyrics and endowing them with new depth and jeweled nuance.

Dreams dress us carefully in the colors of power and faith.

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.