Whenever I look up at the stars,
whenever I look towards the peak of a mountain,
whenever I look at an image of The Moon or Mars,
something within me is always awakened,
something within calls upon me
to want to venture towards the unknown,
something within longs to drive me to go
where I have never been before,
and I cannot stop myself from setting out
upon an open road -
one that might see me jump inside a cockpit,
one that might see me climb a rock face,
one that might see me put on a spacesuit
and be launched upon a rocket and into space.
I have always wondered what we will find above the clouds,
I have always been curious about
what lives below the surface of the sea,
I have always been fascinated by
what artists create and why,
and I have always been inspired by
the universe of countless points of life
and the possibilities that await us on
the journey of the future that humanity
will never cease to be enriched by
as we reach higher, farther, and faster
than even our dreams could imagine…
I have always been a dreamer -
but I am also someone who gravitates towards
and likes to be surrounded by people
who are not afraid to be themselves
and who know they are different from
the majority of people they know,
because they are who influence and inspire me
to never stop doing what I do.
Exploration comes in many forms…
the reasons why we are all here
and why we want to be interconnected
so irrevocably to one another
speaks to something about us all
that manifests itself in the ways
that we seek out and look for answers,
because we are presented with a reality
that makes us feel like we are in a mindset
in which everything we thought we knew
is now in question and must be explored…
since I was a child, I have been walking through forests,
I have been following the trail of discovery,
I have been watching the world and its people
and I have seen change happen
within the blink of an eye,
and as time has gone on I have become
increasingly more interested
in decoding the mysterious messages
left behind by nature and by our ancestors
who wished for us to understand what
we can achieve if we don’t stop pushing forwards
in whatever direction we want to go -
however what we might uncover might not be what, nor where,
we expected to find what have been unconsciously looking for.
I have never let anything, nor anybody,
stop me from being who I have always felt I should be:
someone who feels at home while outdoors;
someone who can be happy and content
while delving into my own thoughts
and wondering what I will do
with what will inevitably emerge
from the event of creation in my imagination;
someone who always remembers where I have been -
which is why I seldom feel lost;
someone who never stops finding something,
or someone, to be inspired by;
someone who can go somewhere
and repeatedly be struck by a deep
and profound feeling of awe.
I have always been, and I always will be,
someone who is a voyager,
someone who is a discoverer,
someone who is a wanderer,
someone who is the definition of an explorer.
Year: 2025
My Poem “Hell on Earth”
The fires of hell
have been visited upon
the “City of Angels”…
lives have been lost,
houses have been burned,
places of meaning have been destroyed,
life has been irrevocably changed
for the people of Los Angeles –
and no one can do anything to stop
what is still happening,
nor can anyone turn back the clock
and restore a community to what it was,
nor bring back the beauty that has been lost.
My heart goes out to those who have lost so much
to a force of nature that is notoriously hard to fight…
my thoughts and prayers go out to those mourning
the loss of friends and family members
who did not and could not leave their homes…
my hope is that when those
who were evacuated for their own safety
return to the place they never wanted to leave
will one day be able to recover
from the trauma of the nightmare
that they are having to endure…
my condolences and my deepest sympathy
goes out to those who may have lost everything
that meant the world to them
and that which symbolised their love of life.
As I write this, people from all around the world
watch on as images of the seemingly endless flames
of the devastating fire that continues to burn unabated
are shared with countless others…
as I write this, families who fled to save their lives
are returning to the charred remains of their homes
and are having to face the darkness
of their new reality as tears fill their eyes…
as I write this, I wish that a miracle would come to the rescue of the people of the haven of dreamers
and bring an end to the destruction, the death,
the suffering, and the misery of those who have been scared by what has befallen
one of the most beautiful places in the world
and which has always represented
hopefulness and prosperity…
as I write this, fire fighters, as well as ordinary citizens,
work together and attempt to do what they can
to douse the flames and prevent any further damage
to the place they call home
from the inferno that has raged for days on end –
and I hope that one day somewhere
that has for so long been thought of
as a place akin to “Heaven on Earth”
will rise again from the ashes
of how it appears at this moment: Hell.
My Poem “In my stride”
When I was younger
I didn’t worry about anything -
I always assumed that everything
would turn out how it was supposed to,
and when it was supposed to…
as I got older, and as more pressure
was put upon me to try and find
a direction in life to proceed down,
I began to wonder what I was going to do,
where I was going to go,
and who I was going to be -
however, like always, I just presumed
that somehow, somewhere, something
would happen that would make the choices
that I had to make next simple and easy
to understand why I needed to make them,
and when I needed to make them…
when I finally began making a living
and doing what I had to do to make ends meet,
I just went with the flow and the wave
that I found myself riding
and eventually I was able to see
another avenue to venture down
that seemed more fulfilling, more exciting,
more inspiring, and more rewarding in ways
than I had known before.
As time went on, times of chaos and confusion
naturally overshadowed and influenced
the decisions that I made -
and I had to be both patient and humble
when it came to what I wanted to do,
who I wanted to be, and what I was willing
to give to reinvent myself and to receive
the necessary gifts I would require
to rise above the world of my present
and create a new version of my identity.
After I experienced the transformative
surge of feelings, emotions, and power
like that of the wonder of a child
when they see something or do something
they have never seen or done before,
I was never the same and I knew
I could never be the same again -
because what changed in me
allowed me to see, to hear, to taste, to smell,
to feel the world and the wider universe
in such a fundamentally different way
that altered me on a level that is
hard to explain and impossible to describe.
Every day whenever I look back,
or whenever I find myself somewhere new,
something within me is stirred,
something within me opens up,
something within me knows that
there is more than one way of thinking
and interpreting what presents itself to me:
something profound, something intense,
something that only I may be able to quantify initially,
until I can find a way to share and to communicate
what I know is true and what I do not need evidence of
to prove to me that more things than
could ever imagined are connected
in an infinite number of ways.
Though I know, and have always known,
that things would work out the way that are supposed to,
there have been times when my faith has been tested;
however, I have always tried to maintain my belief,
and I have always been hopeful,
that no matter what happens in life,
and no matter where I am,
things will always happen exactly
as they were intended to from the start -
so the best way to take what comes my way
is to take everything in my stride.
Coming Soon: The Storyteller
Hi everyone!
I am thrilled to announce that my ninth official poetry collection, ‘The Storyteller’, will be available to purchase on February 2, 2025, in hardback and as an ebook from Amazon.
Filled with over 60 previously unpublished poems, ‘The Storyteller’ is a collection of poetry, as well an insight into the mind and the life of a writer and an author of stories – not to mention an exploration and an explanation of why storytelling is important and has always been important to humanity, as well as to life itself.
From the back cover:
I always wanted to be a Storyteller…
As we all grow, we all change and we all realise that even our heroes can bleed, even our heroes can cry, even our heroes are sometimes tested to their limits, and even our heroes are unable to live forever.
I have always believed that I am here for a reason and I have a purpose to live, to explore, and to be inspired by what I find, and by whom I meet along my journey, and to tell the stories that I believe were always waiting for me to tell – because I believe I am the only one who can tell some stories as they have always been meant to be told.
You can check out ‘The Storyteller’ on Amazon now, and as soon as it is available to purchase physically, as well as digitally, on February 2nd, I will share a link to a purchase a copy right away.
-Mark
My Books
From Poet of the Sphere to The Sound of Mark, from The Eternal Boy to The Dreamer and The Dream, from Too Close To The Sun to Playing God, from The Wolf in Me, The Wolf in You, The Wolf in Us to Vega – The Vampire King, from The Rambler to Poet of the Multiverse, from The Comeback Kid to The Pathfinder, from The Doorman to I’ll Meet You At The Lighthouse, from The Storyteller to The Return of The Wolf, from Scales & George to The Affair, from The Shadow of The Wolf to my upcoming poetry collection The Outsider – all my published poetry and stories are all now available to buy from Amazon! Get yourself a copy now! 😎
My Poem “Tomorrow’s World”
A new day, a new month, a new year
always heralds the arrival of a new generation
of new faces and new voices
that always bring new ideas and new perspectives
into the mix of art, music, culture, fashion,
entertainment, science, technology, and innovation
that the world is already familiar with and is known for -
but no one can know how the path of coexistence
will influence and change things and people
in ways that are hard to predict the outcome of…
as some things and some people grow
in popularity and in prominence
there are always, at first, subtle signs
that point towards a difference between two eras,
and before long a fusion of multiple states of being begins…
change is always a learning process,
and sometimes an opportunity to refocus
and what matters to you and where
you want to progress towards.
Change can be unpredictable,
and sometimes unsettling -
but as long as you keep a hold of who you are
and what you believe is your true calling in life
then the new world unveiling itself before you
will continue to welcome the inclusion
of your individual contributions…
whenever a puzzle is broken down
into its separate components,
at first, it can be hard to see the final picture
being represented -
however every detail, every shape, every colour
of everything eventually becomes more
and more recognisable and obviously
made to fit alongside one another,
but sometimes you have to push through
the barrier of frustration that can sometimes rise around you
and continue to persevere until you reach a point
where and when you realise that something new,
something interesting, something exciting,
something that has been waiting to emerge
is taking shape within your mind.
Light exists within darkness,
darkness exists within light -
because that is the way of the universe:
order and chaos, existing in a perpetual cycle
of mutual understanding that one cannot ultimately dominate the other
but both ultimately rely upon each other
for their very survival…
destruction and creation
are two sides of the same coin
that when tossed into the air
could ultimately decide the fate of countless lives…
differences of opinions, clashes of personalities,
explosions of emotions, people of power,
weapons of war have been integral to reshaping
what life will look like for future generations
since the beginning of time,
and every so often we all have to stop
and remind ourselves of who we are
and what we are capable of if we all choose
to work together instead of against one another -
because I have always believed that good things
can come from doing the right thing
at the right time and for the right reasons,
as long as no one forgets
that the people and the things of the past
and the people and the things of the present
are what make the reality of the future
that will be tomorrow’s world.
markthepoet.me 