"Deep inside I feel that this world we live in is really a big, huge, monumental symphonic orchestra. I believe that in its primordial form, all of creation is sound and that it's not just random sounds, that it's music."
- Michael Jackson, Ebony Interview, May 1992
Read More"Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There's no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?"
- Excerpt from John Steinbeck's masterpiece East of Eden
Read MoreGalway Kinnell, an American poet, passed from leukemia at the age of 87 on October 28, 2014. A while back, my dad gave me a collection of his poetry, Three Books, which has been very inspirational to me in my writing. His poetry is simply written and slowly paced yet so engrossing. I read his poems and picture a grandfather rocking in his chair reciting line after line to the sweeping wind.
The following is one of my favorite poems by Kinnell. He is survived by his wife and two children.
Read MoreKilled in
Action:
The steps thunder like a stallion
The final destination is reached
The gun is drawn.
Killed in
Action:
The boy right out of high school
The man right out of Dresden
The boy's clip is empty.
He raises his hands to the Heavens
The man's gun is loaded
He raises it to his shoulder.
Killed in
Action:
Desperation leaks from his salty sweat
A human caught in the headlights
A boy caught in a noose.
Killed in
Action:
A boy who knew no love
A boy who lived no life
A boy who was only that.
Killed in
Innocence:
The shell flies out
The boy falls down
A face forgotten.
A life never told.