Month: April 2015

My Poem ‘The Book People’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Every book lover
has their favourite author;
every literary enthusiast
has their favourite book;
every storyteller,
every story reader,
knows that books
are really secret doors;
everyone with an imagination
can go on a journey
and cherish every word,
as if they had never read
a single sentence before.

I love hearing people say:
“oh my god, I love this book!” –
especially from the mouths of the young;
I always smile when I see
a fellow fan of an author
and a book that I love.
Stories have the power
to make you feel something amazing,
to greater depth and effect
sometimes than a song;
there are tales and characters
that shine for me and show me
the way to somewhere I have been looking for –
like the stars that shimmer like glitter
in the dark sky above.

A library is like a gold-mine of riches;
a bookstore is like a fountain of wishes;
a mind is a place where stories become a part of us;
a network of like-minded people is absolutely wondrous;
communication is the best way to feel free and boundless;
language is the supreme method
to teach someone about themselves;
sharing your dreams can inspire the dreams
and the imagination of countless generations;
the world that you live in with everyone else
is full of art that is truly timeless.

Books are meant to be opened and read,
and books are meant to share your life with you,
and they are meant to change as they live their own life –
being carried from place to place
and being held by person to person;
every book and every story, to me, is a limited edition;
any and every book has words and worlds within
that are uniquely special;
everybody has their own attractive qualities,
but to me their is no greater gift and attribute,
and no greater example of enlightened character,
than to be one of the millions of people,
of all ages all around the world,
who happily count themselves
as one of “The Book People”.

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My Poem ‘Everything Flows’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You can’t ever repeat a moment,
we can’t ever step twice into the same stream;
you can’t ever expect the world to stay the same,
because nothing is truly permanent;
we are constantly changing,
and in time what is will become what was
and slowly flow past us, like a river of rain.

With a new day comes new memories;
with the changing of the tide,
new things come into our lives
and stay on the surface of our life’s sea;
with the changing of the seasons and the time,
the world looks slightly different –
just as when the leaves fall from the trees;
with the arrival of a new symphony
that is carried on the wind,
the world, even from space,
always looks like it has never been seen.

The universe is a continuum;
everything is in a constant cycle;
the very cells of our bodies are vibrating every second;
nothing and no one is immortal,
but everything and everyone
has their vital part to play
in the reshaping of the world, for a while.

Every form of life goes through stages;
everything has an inbuilt blue-print and memory;
every form of life throughout their lives changes faces;
everything can be inspiration for philosophy,
history, psychology, artistry,
beauty, stories, and poetry.

Everybody is constantly learning something new
that they didn’t know;
everything and everyone
all seem to be constantly on the go;
everybody is always changing their moods,
and adapting to new codes;
everything is a road,
and to get the most out of life,
and to live to the fullest,
you need to stop holding back,
and just let everything flow.

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My Poem ‘Writing the blues’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Writing the blues
is writing about what you feel
deep in your heart;
writing about your feelings
is sometimes like telling a story
that you don’t know how, or where, to start;
writing is one of the most important things
in the life of a poet;
writing poetry is sharing your soul beautifully,
and seeing your dreams travel to the stars.

Only a fellow poet can know what it takes
to put your emotions and memories into words;
only a fellow artist can understand
what it means to create something important,
as a gift to the entire world;
only a fellow dreamer
can possibly go on a journey with you,
and give you hope when you need it the most;
only a fellow friend
with the most amazing generosity of spirit
can pick you up and bring you back to life
when you feel lost.

Things in life happen for a reason;
even the most beautiful and gifted of humanity,
some of the most gorgeous people that we know,
have to go through pain and confusion –
however, those friends, those dreamers,
those artists, those poets, those kindred spirits,
I pray will always remember that,
no matter how near or far away we are,
we are all on this planet
and we all live in this world
to be there for each other.

To you, my fellow poet of the blues;
to you, my fellow poet of the universe;
to you, from me the poet of the sphere;
to you, for you, because of you –
in the form of this poem,
I just want you to know,
that I am here for you.
Let your tears flow,
collect them and let the wave of life take you –
but stand tall, stay strong, think of me,
and continue to dream beautiful poetry;
when you sleep, and when you wake every morning,
continue to write from the heart,
and, as if you were singing,
continue writing the blues.

Dedicated to the wonderful poet Zula Blues Poet

My Poem ‘The Fox’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the early hours of the morning
when everybody, mostly,
was asleep in bed,
I used to walk the streets
while the sun was still rising,
and I would see and hear the world –
and there are things that I saw,
and things that I heard,
that I have never before confessed.

I used to listen to the silence,
and, as when I was a child,
I believed that I could hear
and feel the Earth turning;
I used to see the sun
and instantly feel the hairs
on the back of my neck stand on-end,
and I could feel the heat of the sun –
as if my skin was about to start burning.

With the moon still in the sky,
and the stars still shining bright,
the streets, the houses,
the trees, and the flowers,
looked in a stage of rest
as the people sleeping nearby –
and even though it was a new day,
it still had the look
and the feel of twilight.

I used to hear the first birds,
in the trees and on the rooftops,
begin the symphony of song
that is the dawn chorus;
I used to look up at the sky
and see the colours
and the canvas of the clouds
change and paint a unique picture,
with the sun acting as both
an inspiration of natural art,
as well as a back-light.
There were mornings
when I just used to stop and stare,
and feel a part of each
and every beautiful moment;
some mornings were absolutely
stunning, incredible,
phenomenal, and magnificent.

I was witness to true wonders of nature;
I lost time, because I used to forget
that it even existed;
I used to have this feeling
about what a day would consist of
right at the beginning –
like sampling an unfinished meal
and trying to get a sense of it’s flavours;
the times when I felt like
the only person left on Earth,
as if I were its eternal guardian
and destined to walk the miles
of this wonderful sphere forever,
were the best.

Many mornings, many hours,
the only other living thing
that I would see was wildlife –
and the amount of animals
that are already up
and doing what they know,
and what their instincts tell them to do,
without even thinking, is amazing;
and every animal that I used to see
was a moment, for me, that was truly magical:
from deer, to rabbits;
from hedgehogs, to badgers;
from frogs, to cats –
however, the species of wildlife
that I saw the most, and the animal
that I used to see
and would see looking back at me,
the beautiful creature of the night and the day,
which knows the true value of family,
which knows what they have to do to survive
and provide for their family,
that I used to read stories about as a child,
and the animal that I used to see daily
and be captivated by,
was the animal with the most warm and fiery fur on Earth,
which I used to see casually walking down the road,
which I was not for a second afraid by,
and which was and still is one of my favourite animals
of the night and early morning,
and that animal is the fantastic fox.

My Poem ‘Selfie’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Long before the ‘selfie’ was the “selfie”,
long before we used to take pictures of ourselves
with our cameras and share them with our friends,
the ‘selfie’ used to be known as the ‘self-portrait’ –
and, to this day, it is a way
for an artist to show people
what they look like so they can see
who they are, where, and when;
so, the so-called ‘selfie’
has been around for hundreds of years –
however, instead of using paint
to create our self-portraits,
we now use our reflections
as they appear in mirrors.

It is a time-honored tradition
to take pictures of ourselves,
and to me it is in no way egotistical
or self-indulgent;
it is the most important thing
to capture memories and to show how
someone appeared when they had moments to remember,
and when they were happy and in full-health –
and that is why I believe
the self-portraits that we capture and take daily
are brilliant.

If you are comfortable to take a photo of yourself,
it just shows that you are happy in yourself
and how you look;
those who don’t have the same level of self-acceptance
in their appearance would seldom choose
to take a picture of themselves,
because there is something about them
that they would change if they could.

There is nothing wrong with taking a photo of yourself,
especially if the reason that you are taking the picture
is because their is no one else around
to take a photo of you;
people have been posing for pictures
since cavemen were captured on cave-walls
in paintings of hunters hunting gazelles;
if you have a camera in-hand
and you want to show someone what you look like
in a second, why wouldn’t you?

Self-portraits are art;
in this day and age,
you can create a self-portrait instantly;
self-portraits are our signature
and our unique mark;
self-portraits may no longer be called ‘self-portraits’
today in the digital age –
however, they are still what they were,
even if they now have a new same:
the “selfie”.

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