My book “The Rambler” is Out Now!
My New Book “The Rambler” is OUT NOW!
My new book “The Rambler” is OUT NOW on Amazon!
This new book is filled with some of the poems, the tales, the thoughts, and the dreams that I have written and been inspired by while experiencing and while enjoying the wonders of the great outdoors, nature, and while rambling with my feet though some of the most beautiful and inspiring landscapes on Earth.
I love walking, and I love writing poetry – and my new book The Rambler is a celebration of both! Walking and poetry it turns out is in my blood and both pursuits have apparently been shared by many of my family for generations – and my new book is also my tribute to one of the most amazing ways there are of commuting and seeing this beautiful planet that we are all gifted to live upon.
I have always been inspired by nature and nature has been the source and the subject of many of the poems that I have written – and my new collection of poetry, The Rambler, is also a journal of where I have walked, where I have been, what I have done, what I have seen, and what drives me to continue to do what I do.
If you have read any of the poems that I have written and published here on MarkThePoet.Me, and if you choose to buy a copy of my new book, then you will no doubt find several poems that I have published online over the last 4 years since my last poetry collection. From the outset I wanted my new book to be solely about poetry – since over the past few years I have chosen to write and to publish stories of fiction – because poetry is where my journey as a writer began all those years ago, and poetry will always be what I will always return to no matter what.
I hope you are able to get yourself a copy of my new book, The Rambler, and while reading it you find yourself immersing yourself and figuratively following in the same footsteps which I made which inspired every word of every line of every poem that is included within.
Happy Reading! 😊
-Mark
My Poem “Turnaround”
There are times when
there is a prolonged period
of inactivity, of inability,
of inaction, of hibernation
when some animals and some people
experience a status of stasis –
when life and time regresses
and even slows down to some degree;
however, for every time of hibernation
and rehabilitation there must come
a moment when there is a physical,
a psychological, and an instinctual
reawakening that initially may only
be a transitional period
between darkness and light,
between conservation and drive –
and when such a long season
of staying inside comes to an end
there can be momentary thoughts
and feelings of trepidation,
but no matter what anybody or anything
does in life there are sometimes
risks that need to be taken
to turn a world from upside down to
right side up and when you have to
naturally start looking forwards
instead of backwards –
especially when you want to see everything that may have changed
in the interim of a certain confinement
slowly but surely resume and restart,
so that the future of everything and everyone who you know has recently
been through so much will over time
restore and turn themselves around.
My Poem “Eyes”
I wonder how many people realise
that when they are staring into
another person’s eyes
that they are not only looking at
the windows into a person’s soul
but they are also seeing the most
external part of that person’s brain
which is constantly relaying multiple images
at the speed of light down the optic nerve
of each eye to the part of the brain
responsible for making decisions
and stimulating many simultaneous
reactions as a result,
and it is also true that you can tell
a lot about a person’s health
and their lifestyle by watching
the way that the iris of someone’s eye
moves, dilhilates, focuses and flickers –
and I think the fact that our eyes
have such a direct connection to
the way our brain operates,
the thoughts that we have,
and the storm of chemicals that
bubbles up within us perfectly
symbolises
why it is important to take care of your eyes
because they are vital in more ways
that some people might realise.
My Poem “We Can’t Go On Like This”
We can’t go on like this forever…
we can’t go on staying away from places,
wearing masks, and being socially
distant from one another…
we can’t go on living in insulated bubbles –
because if we do then we must
expect ourselves to over time
become suffocated from real life
and traumatised emotionally
as well as psychologically as if were
we prisoners who had committed a crime…
we can’t go on living a life as if one
that parallels those of the past –
because the destiny of humanity
is to be interconnected both emotionally
as well as physically, and if we are not
then I believe that we may one day
find ourselves regressing as a species and over time aggressively devolving
into even smaller tribes.
We can’t go on not exploring new things
and not finding ourselves somewhere
that we never expected ourselves to be…
we can’t go on not sharing new
personal experiences –
even those made under
the most extreme and
stressful of circumstances…
we can’t go on not living like
we need to live for our further development
so as to ensure that we live to see
the day when the entire world faces
all the threats that present themselves
together
rather than individually and country by country.
People can’t go on not working,
people can’t go on not providing,
people can’t go on as they are
and as they have had to
for far too long as it is –
however I know that everybody
around the world can collectively
agree that no matter what happens
humanity will survive what is going on now,
but in the long term we cannot go on like this.
My Poem “The Red Kites”
Against the bright blue of the morning sky
I see the dark silhouettes of many
birds of prey circling above
as they use the warm air currents
to fly, to glide, to quiver, and to hover
over the trees and the fields below –
and it took my a while to realise
who I was looking up at
and what I was looking up at,
however I instantly knew
that were not eagles, they were not hawks,
they were not seaguls, nor crows –
but it was not until I saw
the unmistakable reddish-brown
of the birds body and the black-streaked
pale grey feathers of their head,
and the forked feathers of their tail,
that I knew the identity of whom
and what I was looking at
and who and what were looking down upon me:
Red Kites, soaring like nothing
I had ever seen before,
gently drifting majestically
like princes and princesses of the air,
seemingly without a care, hunters,
acting on instinct and just being
who and what they were meant to be,
at the same time embodying the greatest
wish of life: the gift to be free –
and it was as I watched them
circle high above my head
that I wished I could be
just like the Red Kites,
because as they soared so effortlessly
they seemed as if they were like
something out of a dream
from my childhood and from a world
that my imagination brought to life
every day and every night.
My Poem “The Right Turn”
In times of crisis and confusion,
or at times of rest and relaxation,
everybody has the same people,
the same things, and the same places
to return to that have always had a way
of bringing them back down to Earth,
of settling them down,
of bringing something out in them
which has always helped to enlighten
and to illuminate a way to find
a sense of peace of mind.
Everybody either has a go to “something” –
good book, a favourite TV show,
a movie, a song, or a piece of music –
that always has this transformative
magic and power to be able to instantly
change a person’s mood
and even have an effect upon
how a person thinks, talks, and moves.
Everybody always seeks out answers
and wants to find simple solutions
to questions and puzzles
that play upon their thoughts,
but sometimes the most accessible,
acceptable, and easily digestible explanations are hard to find
because sometimes you have to
firstly unlearn what you have learned.
Everybody always has paths
that they travel down that they
know better than others
as well as mental maps that they know
the landmarks of in such detail
that they almost seem ingrained
upon their brain like a tattoo,
because when the time comes to act
they instinctively know what to do,
how to do what they need to do, and who,
what, and where they need to be
to make the right turn.
“The Wolf In You” – One Year Later
Almost a year ago my book “The Wolf In You” was published for all the world to read and I still could not be more proud of it and the continuing story of Olivia Hunter that I wrote! Writing “The Wolf In You” was a journey, just as every story is – but this book more so because of all the many layers of depth there are within the story it tells to be revealed, and I genuinely enjoyed every moment that I spent continuing the story of Olivia Hunter and telling the tale of what she did next following the events of the preceeding book “The Wolf In Me”. I hope everybody gets a chance to read “The Wolf In You” and if anyone so wishes you can get a copy on Amazon by touching the image above.
Happy reading! 😊
My Poem “The Comet”
As I watched the bright tail
of the comet streak overhead
I began to imagine all of the things
that had to have happened
since the creation of the universe,
since the disk of our galaxy came together,
since the formation of planet Earth,
and since the origin of humanity,
and how everybody and everything
has always been surrounded by
the darkness of space,
all the little things
and all of the big things
that had to combine to make up
the tale of everything –
and no matter the absence of colour that I see
I continue to smile because I know
that there are stars and there are nebulae
out there in the cosmos of the universe
that are like oases of light
and like gardens of life
which are composed of streams of matter
and energy that twist like ribbons
as they ripple like the waves of an ocean,
where stars are being born
every second that our world turns,
that are an example of how something
is always happening somewhere
in places where wonders beyond
the wildest of dreams are being realized –
and as I stare at the bright halo
and the streaking tale of the out
of this world interstellar snowball
I wonder how many other people
have seen this same remnant of
the beginning of the solar system
over the centuries since the journey
began for this particular comet.
My Poem “Impressionable”
Since I was a child
I have always been impressionable…
since I was a boy
I have been profoundly impacted
by many sources of entertainment
that subconsciously
left their mark upon me…
since I first started to be drawn
to the images of screens, the words of books,
and the ultrasonic magnificence of music
I have been changed little by little…
since I first began going on journeys
with fictional characters who
inhabited many different worlds
and who lived many different lives
I have been led to believe and to imagine
that what I was shown or gifted
the vision of was a real and true
possibility in some distant
and distinctive alternate reality.
In retrospect, I believe that my childhood
was and still is a treasure trove
and a goldmine of inspiring stories,
visuals, music, and feelings
that over time I saved within my memory
until the day when I would need
a boost of inspirational energy
to help fuel the poetry and the stories
that I would ultimately come to tell…
I truly believe that had I not grown up
how, when, where, and with whom
I grew up with my life would
have turned out very differently
and I would not have been able
to get through some of the things
in my life that led to me to learning from
all the lessons that I now know so well.
There were books that I read,
there were songs that I listened to,
there were TV shows and movies
that I watched over and over again as a child
that I loved and I thought I knew
everything about and every moment of
that when I rewatch and when I replay
them now I realise they were full
of many subtle, but amazing,
details and messages that have
a different, but still just as incredible,
effect upon me that reminds me
why it is sometimes important to return
to something or to somewhere that you
think you know like the back of your hand –
because everyone and everywhere
has more layers and levels of meaning
to reveal about themselves,
especially to those of us who have this
insatiable curiosity about so many things,
who are at their heart someone
who is and who always has been
unashamedly impressionable.
My Poem “A Murder of Crows”
Every morning when I look outside
my bedroom window I see a Murder –
however the “Murder” that I speak of
is nothing to be concerned over,
because what I see is merely
an assemblance of crows
all gathered together,
all cawing to one another –
which occurs like clockwork every morning
and all throughout the day,
and it is to the caws of crows
that I have heard and awoken to for years;
because for some reason
where I live is like Crow central for
a large number of nests in tall trees
that are home to the jet-black,
majestic, mysterious, captivating,
soaring, distinctive, supernatural
spirits of the sky who are considered
to be among the most intelligent
of all the birds of the world,
who are capable of doing things
that no other bird would even
think of doing, and who definitely
like to be heard whenever there is
a gathering of them, that is as if
they acting out a scene from a play
for all to hear that is called:
“A Murder of Crows”.
My Poem “B.T.W.”
Going back to doing something –
even something that you used to
be able to do as if in your sleep –
is not always easy, especially after
a considerable amount of time has passed…
even resuming doing something
that you used to consider routine
can take a while to click
back into place and does not
automatically return to your memory without difficultly, nor fast…
after you have spent some time
out of a particular loop
you can sometimes make mistakes
as you try to slip back into
performing and repeating a cycle
just as if you were attempting
to put on an old pair of shoes…
putting on clothes that you know
you only wear when and where
you are clocking in to return to work
does help someone in finding the right
mind-set to go where they need to go
so that they can once again do
what they need to do…
when you see businesses closing,
when you see people struggling,
when you see a world in chaos
then you appreciate the fact
that you still have what you have,
you still have who you have,
and you can still do some of the things
that give a person a sense of identity
and routine in some way –
and though most people often gripe
about their job while they are doing it,
when people think back on a time
when they did not have something
to wake up for and somewhere to go to
then they begin to count their blessings
and thank God for still having a job
to do each and every day.
