Year: 2015

My Poem ‘The Art Complex’

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

There is nothing more inspiring than art;
there is no one more interesting than an artist;
discovering new art is the best part of any day
and when I do I am always touched deep in my heart;
to me art is magic –
and right this second there is so much art in the world
it is beyond the dreams of any dreamer,
and it has to be seen to be believed
and must not be missed.

Art is on every city street corner;
art can be seen in the sky;
art can be seen on doors;
art is being created spontaneously every minute,
and the true gift of art
is that it not only is an expression of spirit
but it is also being painted on a canvas
that is as deep as a black-hole
and also infinitely wide.

I believe that we are in an artistic renaissance
filled with music, portraits, paintings,
literature, poetry, creativity
on so many levels of complexity –
the rhythm is so encompassing and phenomenal,
art inspires more art,
and artists are like the choreographers
of a profoundly beautiful and moving dance.

I wake up every morning
and art is the first thing that I see;
I open my eyes every day
and I see new life in the new light;
I open my mind as I open the curtains
and I see the most awe-inspiring masterpiece
right in front of me;
I imagine something I have never thought of before
and my imagination and I are away
climbing higher and higher by the second
faster than a kite.

Watching an artist create art,
even for a fellow artist,
is powerful and inspiring;
watching a blank page or a white canvas
slowly transform into a piece of art
is incredibly amazing;
seeing inspiration come to life
by the hand of an artist
and watch their vision evolve
from being something ethereal
to something tangible is breath-taking;
witnessing the reveal of an artists poetic license
is truly fascinating, inspiring, and enlightening.

Art is words, colours, light, dark;
art is natural, meaningful,
life-changing, emotional;
art is epic, magnetic, and an artists body
and mind is never at rest;
art is never untouchable –
it always has a reason to be,
and it is always preceded by a spark;
art is reveling in the freedom of your birthright,
and focusing on attaining a never-ending goal;
artists of their time are avatars
of the world they live in which they are inspired by,
and every artist knows that no matter
how simple something appears
in actuality everything is a work of art
and is a story that is substantially
and markedly complex.

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My Poem ‘For the record’

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

Like the Earth orbiting the sun;
like the solar system
spinning around the core of the galaxy;
like the sounds that can be heard
while listening to the noise
of the interstellar background;
like the racing heart beat
of somebody out on a run;
like the natural soundtrack of life
that you can hear and feel
which you can imagine with great detail
without needing to see it;
like the sound of waves crashing on a beach;
when you listen to the music
that sings to your soul
and inhabits your heart
that has been recorded
in the most exquisite quality possible –
in memory, on CD, on vinyl,
the spirit of the music, the artist,
the magic and the depth of the human mind
and body gives you back every time
something you wait with anticipation
to be found so that it may
again and again resound
and make you feel as if
your feet have left the ground.

People love music;
music is so adored and worshiped
it is like a religion;
music can inspire people to be
and to do anything:
to be brave, to be thoughtful,
to be artistic, to be prolific;
everyone knows what their favourite song
or piece of music is,
and everybody has a personal
and a profound reason for why
their song is their song.

Music has been a part of our lives
since we were born;
albums and artists have been talking to us
and taking us to our dreams
since we heard our first old-favourite;
music is at the centre of our universe
that rotates just as fast
as the grooves of a vinyl album on a turntable;
listening to music is always a blessing,
and never a chore;
there is so much music that has been created
that is epic and great;
music is a gateway to an astoundingly-beautiful
and magical world.

Music is the eternal and universal love
that everybody and anybody can enjoy
and be blessed with their entire lives;
music is what we all share
an invisible connection to
and are attached to every second
by an unbreakable umbilical-cord;
music is the abundant source of energy
that makes life what it is,
just as much as the sun’s light;
music is the single most important,
meaningful and memorable thing
that the human race will be remembered for
by future generations and fellow space-travelers –
and all we do will live on forever
as our greatest monument of ourselves
for the record.

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My Poem ‘Breakthrough’

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

Everything at the beginning is hard
and it can take some time
to find your feet before you can walk;
everything new is a learning process
and you can easily erase your early mistakes
and dismiss them as being imperfect
but important first steps,
as if they were chalk drawings
on a blackboard or a side-walk;
things at the start can take a while to master,
but when that thing that you were missing
the entire time clicks into place
like an integral puzzle-piece
what you are doing makes much more sense,
and every time you repeat the same act
you get better and better –
not to mention faster and faster.

Breaking a barrier;
crossing a threshold;
walking a wire;
deciding to be decisive and bold;
doing something you have always wanted to do;
facing a fear; learning something you never knew;
making something clear;
everyone has a moment of realization
and decides to take a leap
into a defining life-changing decision.

When you have been stuck
in one place for a long time,
and the only direction
you think you have been going in at all is back,
when you really want to go forward
to something new that will make you happy,
even though you think you know what you want
it can be hard to know what you should do,
when you have an opportunity
to take a chance but you have to act fast,
if you have a goal and a perfect ending in your mind
and you believe with all your heart,
and you do all that you know you can do,
I guarantee you that there will come a moment
when you will have a breakthrough.

My Poem ‘Artistscope’

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

When you have a gift
you need to show it;
when you have a natural talent
you need to share it;
when you have a personality
that is wonderful and magnetic
you need to let your light shine;
when you look at life
and you are instantly attracted
to its amazing wonders,
especially if you are an artist,
then you need to capture
those miracles of the world
and of your imagination
and give them everlasting life.

Artists are the most amazing,
phenomenal, sensitive, wonderful
and expressive people you will ever meet,
and every time I make a connection
with a fellow artist I become inspired
just by seeing, sensing,
and touching their spirit;
some people understand art,
and some people don’t –
but one of the most incredible gifts
of an artist is their exceptional power
to distinctively emote;
there are artists living
on every continent on Earth,
and every one has their own
unique style and way
of expressing themselves through their art,
and every artist’s art is always influenced
and infused by what surrounds them
and the studio that is also their home.

You can watch an artist
make art wherever you are;
you can see the passion, the love,
the heart of an artist who creates
masterpieces one after another,
like the awesome LA artist Amanda Oleander,
thousands of miles away
thanks to the instantaneous technology
of the 21st century;
you can be witness to an immersive,
profound and defining moment for you
and for an artist and give them a part of you
and be with them in spirit
every second of every day of the week –
from Monday to Sunday.

Art is not bound by time,
nor are it’s artists;
art is happening 24-hours a day,
7 days a week, 365 days a year,
and art in so many of its forms
can make you smile, inspire your dreams,
make you feel something you have never felt,
and it can bring you to tears.
I feel blessed to have known
and to have met artists from all walks of life,
from all around the world,
who truly inspire me every day
with the amazing things that they were born to do;
I look to my fellow artists
when I want to see and feel empowered with hope;
art can and will always change the world,
and if you are not an artist
and you want to bring the most spectacular
rainbow of colour into your life
seek out an artist and prepare to be amazed
and awestruck by what you see
when you look through their artistic periscope.

My Poem ‘Heavy’

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

My eyes are heavy;
the time is getting late;
I have just enough inspiration
and energy to write something poetic;
I feel like I am going to be
‘out like a light’ any minute now –
but before I do drift off to sleep
like a boat down a river,
I wanted to write something
about life, dreams, and as always
something about me.

I come to everything
with an open mind
and an open heart;
I face everything
expecting a hopeful and optimistic resolution;
I always get up strong after I have fallen hard;
I keep going no matter what,
because that is my everlasting constitution.

Life, the world, people, fascinate me
and amaze me every day –
I learn something new about something
and someone daily;
one thing that I have learned
is that there is no telling
as you live your life
who you are going to meet
and talk to along the way;
one motto to live by
that I have always liked,
which is also the motto
of the U.S. state of New Hampshire,
is to “Live Free or Die” –
and if that motto could sum up a particular person,
it would have to be me.

I love to talk;
I love to share;
I love to walk;
I love to dare.
The freedom to be who I want to be
means more to me than anything,
and I think that most people take their freedom
to do, to love, to buy,
to express, to have whatever they want for granted –
but I don’t and I never will,
because at any moment anything could happen,
and taking an actual account of what you say
to me is very important.

Words are a promise;
words are a declaration;
words are indelible to some people;
words cannot say everything,
but that does not stop them
from being and sounding magical.
I have loved words since I first earned to read;
I have taken people for their word,
and I have unfortunately on occasion been led astray;
I think about words when I dream at night in bed;
I am always listening and remembering
the words that came out of peoples mouths,
even if they don’t themselves –
a single sentence has repeatedly
been read and recited over and over again
by me in the past for days after days.

I am about to fall asleep,
I can feel a wave of fatigue cover me like a duvet;
I am about to be carried away, and sink beneath;
I can’t remember all that I was going to write
and what I was going to say –
however, I don’t think that it matters:
I think and I believe that the simple act of writing,
thinking, remembering, and dreaming
is enough justification, if there needed to be one,
for me to be who I am, doing what what I am doing;
and if there is to be one last thought
that could become a monument of today
it would have to be this poem –
a piece of me, a method of madness,
a beating heart, which is also the source
of all joy and sadness –
which for me is always heavy.

My Poem ‘Dear Friend’

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

Dear friend,
how have you been?
What have you heard?
what have you seen?
What have you been doing?
How have you been feeling?
It’s spring here,
and the days feel longer;
it’s starting to get steadily warmer,
I have to say –
and every day, just recently,
has been sunny and bright,
and above my head has been
an endless blue sky.
Winter was cold,
however we had no snow –
and it felt like everything
was holding its breath;
but now everything and everybody
can breath regularly,
because everything now is clearer.

I saw a magician last week,
and I am still amazed by what I saw
and what I felt during their show;
I began reading an old favourite book of mine,
‘The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’,
and I am convinced that wherever I look
I am seeing the number ’42’ –
the answer to ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’;
I went to London again a few weeks ago,
and I had the most fantastic and inspiring time;
I have been going from place to place,
and I have been compelled to take pictures,
ask questions, and write a poem or two;
it has been weeks since I went to the cinema
to watch a film – however there are a few movies
that I am looking forward to seeing –
every time I go to the cinema
it has mostly been a special experience for me:
it always has, and always will be.

My life has been a roller-coaster
for a while, as you know,
and I have been through a lot –
not as much as some,
but I think my fortunes
may be on the rise again, like the rising sun.
I must go now, but I hope to hear from you soon.
Whatever you are doing,
I hope you are happy and having fun!
I hope you continue to live a blessed and happy life,
and I wish only the best for you,
my dear friend.

My Poem ‘Energy’

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

The life-giving light
and heat of the sun
that fills us all with energy,
zest, and drive –
like a solar-powered battery;
the rush of adrenaline
that courses through our veins
and gives us the stamina
and the vigor to keep going;
the inspiration that writes itself
in verses of poetry;
the motivation that keeps
the constant creation of new ideas flowing.

Energy can be felt;
energy can be sensed;
energy can be our richest source of wealth;
energy cannot be fenced;
energy has a spirit;
energy never dies;
energy has no true limit;
energy is everywhere –
it is abundant first thing in the morning at sunrise,
it can be seen when snow is falling silently at night;
energy can turn into tears
and can be tasted when someone cries.

Love is the energy of the gods and the heavens;
light is the energy of the stars;
memory and magic is the energy that enchants
an entire life and gives nature
and the universe its essence;
imagination is the energy that allows us
to travel to different worlds
and imagine the human race one day
living on another planet,
perhaps even Mars.

Our thoughts create waves
in the ocean of energy
that connects every shore on Earth;
our emotions can change
our entire perspective of life;
our relationships with people and things
are constantly changing, evolving,
and are in different stages of rebirth –
even when the sun is in the sky,
it can sometimes be hard to realize
if it is in fact day or whether it is night.

Energy comes in many forms;
hope is the energy
that is always ringing my doorbell,
and knocking at my front-door;
the energy of purpose,
the feeling of belonging,
the source and the muse of the artist,
can grow to become as important
as the blood being pumped
by your heart around your body;
wherever you go, wherever you look,
whatever you instantly ‘just know’,
whatever you touch,
is a fountain, a volcano,
and is like a magnet
that is constantly drawing people and life to it,
that is like a lightning-rod
and a furnace of unbelievable
and incredible energy.

My Poem ‘Random’

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

The randomness of the world
is a wonderful thing to see;
the diversity of people’s choices
is fascinating to witness;
for a keen observer like me,
seeing the combination of colours,
shapes, styles, and individual obsessions,
is, in and of itself, a work of poetry.
Seeing the similarities that people share,
and how they knowingly and not so accidentally
emulate each other, is to me
like receiving an infinite number of presents
at Christmas.
Despite the randomness, however –
there is undoubtedly an underlying order and reason;
a chaotic and random universe, to me, is a myth;
there have been too many coincidences
that have been revealed to be fateful
and pivotal decisive choices
which have changed entire lives
for me to ever stop believing
that there is a system, a structure,
a network, a complex modus operandi at work
that governs the entire universe –
and to grasp such a phenomenal concept
you only need to think about and observe
the moon orbiting around the Earth,
or the Earth orbiting around the sun.

There is no such thing as an accident;
everything is happening in relation to each other;
memories and emotions play their part in our decisions –
but most of the time we do need to keep
the intensity of our feelings more or less undercover;
and deeper down in the undercurrent
of the universal consciousness,
there are things occurring
that will invisibly but quietly noticeably
affect everyone, as there is the rise to prominence
of new creations of wonder.

In the moment is like a laboratory;
inside the genetic structure of a person
there lies a charm of causality
and a pattern of evolution
and adaptability called DNA;
even in a drop of rain from the sky
there is evidence of a cycle of life
that is far from random.

My Poem ‘My Dream’

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

When I first started writing poetry
my dream was to touch someone;
when I first began this adventure
my dream was to tell someone
that I loved them;
when I first started writing poetry
I wanted someone to read,
feel, and understand that my words,
my poetry, were me –
and that I was giving
a part of my heart to them.
Not one of my poems
could ever have been written
by anyone else,
my poems are my dreams in black and white
and the things that I have seen,
the places I have been,
the people I have met.
Everything that I have felt
is the most important thing
anyone could ever know about me;
I am a dreamer, and I am a dream;
I am the writer, and I am the story;
my life is my own;
my poetry is my voice, my echo,
my world, my universe –
but there is so much I still have yet to see;
I will write until my dying day;
I will continue to embrace
the wonderful, the intense, and the extreme;
I will be me in every way;
I will never take for granted for a second
my life, my gift, my moment to live my dream.

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My Poem ‘The Ghost Orchid’

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

There are some things
that can and will
only happen once in your life;
there are some things
that come to life for a short time,
and then die just so you could see them;
there are some things
that can only be seen in the moonlight;
there are some things
that are a true, rare,
wonderful, and magical phenomenon.

There are some people
who make life worth living;
there are some people
whose presence keeps you breathing;
there are some people
who you wonder:
‘where have you been all this time?’;
there are some people
who were there all along,
and who when they are standing
right in front of you
appear as if they have stepped
right out of your mind.

There are some things
that disappear and may never be seen again;
there are some things
that reappear from out of nowhere,
like a ghost train;
there are some things
that are just waiting for the right time
to show their face again in the light,
after spending almost a life-time in the dark;
there are some things
that are secretly really other things,
but are so enigmatic and unpredictable
they could easily be mistook,
until their identity again looms large.

Secrets become known every day;
hidden music is found and played
that was once thought lost forever and forgotten;
memories return to the surface of consciousness
in infinitely different ways;
messages continue to echo,
and colours are always recurring, year after year
in the leaves of autumn
and in the flower-buds of blossom.

There are some things
that I haven’t seen since I was a kid;
there are some people
who can’t be seen, but who are always there,
and their touch can be felt like the wind;
there are some things that go,
but do return to shine and remind the world
of their ‘specialness’ in all the ways they always did;
there are some people who are like wildflowers,
who vanish, but who one day come back
and are seen again after so long –
like the mysterious phantom flower,
‘The Ghost Orchid’.