My Poem “Pandora”

Being a poet, being an artist,
being a writer, being an author,
being a creator is like being
the personification of Pandora –
who in Greek mythology was the first woman,
created out of the Earth by order of Zeus,
whose name means “all gifts”,
and who was gifted a container
which she was instructed not to open
but which she one day
did indeed lift the lid of
and in doing so allowed all the “evils”
within to be released and spread across
the Earth, but was able to close the lid
quick enough to contain the blessing of hope.

When an artist creates something
they are bringing to life a gift
that is a mixture of all that they may have
experienced throughout their life,
while still retaining within them
a feeling of hope and optimism that what
they have to say and to express
will one day find the intended target
that their art was meant for.

Everybody on Earth occasionally
has this insatiable instinct to open
a box or a container that has within it
that which they do not understand,
but that which they must see
with their own eyes to satisfy
their need to know all that can be known,
just like the ever curious Pandora.

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #61

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #60

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #59

My Poem “1984/2020”

Forget George Orwell’s “1984”,
because the year 2020 is a story
that we who are alive now
will never forget and hopefully
we will never have to live through
such a year again – because living
in this present time
is like living in a dark reality
the like of which could never
have been accurately predicted
nor imagined before.

Governments right now are
tracking where we are, where we were,
when we were somewhere in particular,
and who we were within
close proximity to at the time
we were where we were
while doing what we were doing –
so forget about “Big Brother”,
because in real life, in real time,
cameras, satellites, our own
personal mobile devices,
search engines, artificial intelligences,
the eyes of authorities are tracking, tracing, monitoring, and analysing
everybody’s every move and everything that we all say, type, read,
watch, and browse while we are
out and about, and even when we are within that privacy of our own house.

Unfortunately for many
this is year will be remembered
for being full of among other things,
including fear, death, panic, and paranoia;
however I believe that 2020
will also be a year that
will be remembered for being
one in which people thought
about one another,
felt grateful for having one another,
stayed in regular contact with one another,
and when people lived
in hope with one another
while some of the greatest artists
and the greatest medical
and scientific minds
all came together for a common goal
that would unite people like never before.

What no one wants is a time,
a reality, a future that may
have some similarities to a famous,
prescient, George Orwell novel –
however, over time, circumstances
will be influential in rewriting
the book of what it means to be human
and every one us will ultimately have
contributed to the tale of humanity
that generations in the future
will come to know well:
a compelling real life story
of worldwide disease, panic,
surveillance, and control
that may one day rival,
and perhaps eclipse, what was
only supposed to be a cautionary tale
of a dystopian world –
the unforgettable story
featured in the novel that is “1984”;
but the story of 2020 is still
being written, so we will have to
wait and see what the future has in store.

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #58

My Poem “Google it”

When we want to know
more about something,
when we want to know
more about somebody,
when we want to know
how to get somewhere,
when we want to find out
more about the author of a book,
when we want to find out
more about the singer of a song,
when we want to find out
more about the director of a movie,
we can simply type as much
as we already know
about something or someone
into the worlds most well known search-engine
and within moments we can explore
all the results that we are presented with…
when we want to do something,
when we want to watch something,
when we want to learn something,
when we want to be inspired by something,
in an instant, at any hour of the day or the night,
anybody with a computer or a mobile-phone
can conjure a wealth of unlimited knowledge and solutions…
whenever anybody does not know the answer to something,
in this modern day, all they need to do
is think of a question, and Google it.

My Poem “The Viking Way”

There are times when I look
at the face of someone
and for some reason I am
reminded of how the Vikings
have always been depicted to have looked
when they lived centuries ago –
when they were building their
impressive longboats
and when they were traversing
the oceans of the world –
at the same time they were raiding,
pillaging, as well as influencing
the early cultures of the European continent.

It was at the time that the Vikings
were worshiping the gods
of their Norse mythology –
such as Odin, Thor, and Loki –
that they were steaking their claim
to places which they discovered,
while also practicing a way of life
that stretched from telling stories,
to drinking mead, to perfecting
the art of the particular type of principles
that still define how their culture
is perceived and who they will continue
to be thought of to be.

I am sure that if some of the Vikings
who feature in so many of the
Scandinavian legends that have been
told and retold, over and over again,
were to learn that clear echoes
of their lineage live on
after a time that they might consider
resembled the prophecised “Ragnorok”,
or the “end of days” of their belief system,
then they would be happy –
because showing your attributes
and expressing your deeds so that
they are not forgotten is an example
of how some people used to live
a long time ago: when a certain
type of people used to live
the Viking way.

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #57

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #56