My Poem ‘Where do you go?’

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

Where do you go
in a moment of silence?
Where do you go
to find yourself?
Where do you go
when people see you
looking off into space?
Where do you go
to feel safe and sound?

To some people, music is a place –
a world which they visit every day
that makes them happy
and which inspires them to create
a work of art that becomes so real to them
that can no longer be bound
solely within their mind;
to some people, their imagination
is like an ocean of fantastic
and mysterious discoveries
to be found every time they choose to dive;
to some people, everything that they see
is like a strand of inspiration
which they cannot help themselves
from pulling and seeing what follows;
to some people, it is a castle,
it is a kingdom, it is a reality,
it is a place built by them,
but influenced by many different things
that they retreat to –
and sometimes what is going on
on the outside, in someone’s life,
has a dramatic bearing
on the destination and the colour-palette
of the place within where they go.

Some people revisit the past…
some people imagine the future…
some people slow down their life
as the world around them races by too fast…
some people hold-on to hope with all that they have,
while others worry too much
and are incarcerated and paralyzed by their fears.

To day-dream is an amazing thing;
to be preoccupied by something on your mind is natural;
to realize a dream-come-true
sometimes you have to let your guard down
and lower your defenses so that your voice can sing;
to overcome something, which to you at the time
feels impossible, is incredible –
our limitations are ussually those of our own making,
and to truly turn your life around and be content
you have to sometimes drown-out the voices of doubt
and paint the picture that you want to see.

Walking through nature
is a great way to open doors in your mind
to new and undiscovered frontiers
that are just waiting to be created and unveiled;
when your attention is completely focused on something
it is like being on a one-way highway
with no way to go but straight-ahead;
saving some time for what you love
and for what makes you smile,
no matter what other people may say or think,
is more important than you could know;
everybody must have a sanctuary…
everybody must have a place of peace…
doing something, doing nothing in particular…
everybody must take a moment of time,
make it last, and make the most of it –
because time is as unique
and precious as a snowflake…
so, my question to you is:
where do you go?

My Poem ‘Torchbearer’

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

I don’t know where it came from…
I don’t know where it began…
I don’t know if it was passed on
to me by my Mum or my Dad –
but I know that I am
the beholder of a fire,
a spark, a light, an energy,
that brought about the creation
of the universe and life-itself…
I feel it constantly burning in my chest…
I see it every night when it illuminates my dreams…
I hear it every morning when I wake up in bed…
I know what it is and I know what it means.

I have known of this internal fire for a while…
I have been driven by this incredible torch
since I saw its rise…
I have tried to describe it
and write poetry about it before,
and every time I do just knowing
that it still burns bright and wild within me
always makes me smile.

I am sure that more than one person
in my life has seen my light
sparkling in the blue and the sometimes green
irises of my eyes –
I see it too when I look in a mirror,
and I know that no matter what happens to me
and where I may end my days
that the light of me
will touch and inspire another
and another and another,
and when humanity finally makes itself
another home on another planet
orbiting another star
that same flame will help fulfill
the destiny of a countless number of people
in an infinite number of ways.

It is a comfort to me
to believe and to know
that I will never truly die…
it is hard to put into words
something that I know instinctively is a part of me,
but also a part of a continuum
that transcends both space and time…
it is why I was born…
it is why I am here…
it is why when I look up at the sky
I believe that I can fly…
and I am not the only one
here on Earth blessed with a gift
to be a beacon of the universe’s divine light –
we are everywhere…
and I never take the fire of my birthright for granted,
and I am honored to be one
of a universe full of torchbearers.

My Poem ‘When the sun goes down’

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

When the sun goes down
on Halloween night,
when the werewolves howl
and the vampire take a bite,
when people walk the streets
dressed as clowns,
when trick or treats
are solicited and given out,
when ghosts haunt and the dead walk,
when costumed children
can be seen going door-to-door,
when the sky looks darker
than you ever thought it could,
when it is normal to dress
and express yourself
in a way that you may not
feel comfortable doing
at any other time of the year –
Halloween can be incredibly fun,
as well as the most perfect time
to face your inner-most fears.

When the sun goes down
and the moon is full,
when the stars are bright,
the universe that we are a part of
has never looked more beautiful,
when you see the spectacular
ribbons of energy of the Northern Lights
illuminate the sky,
the sight that you see takes your breath away –
there is no more magical and spellbinding
event to see that you will remember
for the rest of your life.

When the sun goes down
and another world awakens,
secret doors open wide
that lead to other dimensions…
the invisible becomes visible,
the imaginary becomes real,
the mysterious becomes audible,
the seemingly intangible
you can reach out and feel.

When the sun goes down
we are different people,
our faces are the same
as they are in the hours of daylight –
but more often than not
we show a part of ourselves
that no one else sees…
and at times of the year,
like Halloween,
when imagination knows no bounds,
you can always be sure
to see things that you have never seen –
especially when the sun goes down.

My Poem ‘Cherish the Light’

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

Light is a gift…
light is a beacon…
light is the life that we live…
light is a signal…
light is what paints the colours
and the hues of nature’s seasons…
light is what everything rises towards…
light is what highlights the beautiful…
light is the source
of what is constantly driving
every one of us forwards.

A life without light
is a very dark place indeed;
a night-sky without stars shining in it
is like a life without love – incomplete;
a life spent without artificial illumination
is one that truly understands the importance
of the sun and the moon to all our lives;
a child born in the glow of fire-light
who does not think to take it for granted
knows that light is the most important miracle
known to the entire universe,
and that the greatest repeating spectacle
that anyone can witness in life
with their eyes is the epic, silent,
beautiful, breath-taking,
ascension of the sun
at the moment of a sunrise.

It is almost heart-breaking to watch the sunset
and to see the world around you fall dark;
it is amazing to look up at the sky at night
and see an almost-infinite number of stars
beckoning and telling their silent stories
of space and time, distance and journey, life and death;
it is sad to think that because light and life is so precious
that it can so easily be taken away
as quick as extinguishing the life of a spark;
it is every living-thing on Earth’s right
to have a light to live by and gather-around –
light can be found on the outside,
however within our own mind and heart
there lies a light that is more important
to keep alive and burning bright until your last breath.

Cherish the world…
cherish people…
cherish the magical…
cherish love…
cherish the sun…
cherish life…
cherish imagination…
cherish the light.

My Poem ‘The Wolf of Winter’

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

There is a bite in the air…
the cold wind touches my skin
and sends a shiver down my spine…
the Wolf of Winter is awakening
and leaving its lair…
the Summer months were long
and they were warm –
but, now the howl of the wild
is heralding the re-emergence
and the fresh hunt of what thrives
during the season of Winter-time.

I know this animal very well…
I have been pursued
by the beast of white many times…
I have learned to protect myself
from the force of nature
that can literally get beneath your skin
and chill you to the bone…
I know of people who did not fend-off
the big bad wolf as they were always taught to
and whose spirit unfortunately left their body
as it was overwhelmed and froze them to death
in the place where they lay –
the Wolf of Winter is unrelenting
and has taken many lives;
even as the sun rises on a beautiful golden morning,
the Wolf of Winter walks among us,
and sometimes follows us all the way home.

One of the ways to stave off an attack
from the Wolf of Winter is to keep moving
and to not stay in one place too long –
unless you have a house of thick walls to retreat to
and an unlimited resource of heat;
the Wolf of Winter is just finding their feet
after a period of prolonged slumber –
however, already the Wolf
has caught certain people’s scent
and they are like fresh meat;
the Wolf of Winter can be in many places at-once –
in a snow-covered forest in Switzerland,
on a freezing London street,
atop a mountain in New Zealand;
the Wolf of Winter, like every predator
is both a superior pack-animal
as well as an impressive lone-hunter –
which is why the Wolf of Winter
has lived and endured for as long as it has
and has capably stalked the vast terrain of many lands.

Many fear the Wolf of Winter;
many know the Wolf of Winter is close by
by something as seemingly commonplace as a sneeze;
nobody can truly escape the bitter Alpha -carnivore
who takes their time in deciding
who or what they want to have for dinner;
you can sense the mythical creature of ice
whenever you feel a chill on the Winter breeze;
in a confrontation that happens often
it is not always the same winner who prevails –
you can never truly get the better of a force of nature,
but in my experience if there is one creature
that you should never underestimate
it is the indomitable Wolf of Winter.

My Poem ’50 year-old Revolver’

Mark Hastings Poetry, Short-story , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m sitting here in my kitchen,
at the kitchen table,
with The Beatles’ “Revolver”
playing on my record-player
and a Smith&Wesson
lying next to my still cold bottle of beer…
the house is quiet…
I am sitting almost in complete darkness,
but for the light of the fluorescent-light above my head…
I am thinking about my life –
what happened to screw-up my world so bad…
I am planning by the end of the night
to end it all – and by that I mean
I plan to be dead…
I just can’t take the pain of the heart-break any longer –
I don’t have any-more fight left in me…
this isn’t the first night that I have sat like this
in the dark with a gun in front of me,
but tonight I know is the night
when the stetson of death
that I have been trying on now for a while just feels right.

I am a washed-cowboy…
I am a man planning to ride off
into the sunset and never come back…
I have seen sights and I have been through a lot
since I was a boy –
living without a daddy since I was five,
dropping our of school, making a living
doing what other people wanted me to do,
drinking myself under more tables than I can remember
in bars in each-and-every-one of the fifty states,
surviving a heart-attack…
loving, hurting, pretty-much earning a living
doing things that even I can’t find the words
capable of describing what has slowly but surely
earned me a one-way ticket to hell…
if my life has been a dream this entire time
it has been a nightmare from beginning to end…
my fate was already signed, sealed,
and delivered a long time ago –
there was never any question of how,
just the ultimate question of when?

I always loved The Beatles,
and I have done since I saw them
on Ed Sullivan in ’65 –
I used to wake up every morning for a year
with the words to “Good Day Sunshine”
echoing in my ears…
any-time that I was feeling low,
I would recite the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” in my head
and instantly I would smile and feel more alive…
I haven’t listened to a vinyl-copy
of a Beatles record since 1985 –
but over the years I have heard and listened
to The Beatles’ music wherever,
and in whichever town I came to rest,
and every time I did I would throwback
a glass of J.D. and relive the brief happy times
that I remember from my life.

Death is like the Taxman
that you spend your entire life
trying to hide and run from;
I have been seeing the signs leading me
to where I now sit all my life –
Here, There, and Everywhere –
and when the moment of me sitting here
with my Pa’s Revolver that he left for me,
and The Beatles album that I remember the most of all
playing and it’s songs echoing all around me,
now feels like the moment when I am
going to do no more For No One else but me –
and I Want To Tell You that at this moment
I know that nothing and no one
this time is going to stop me.

And then, I wake up…
And as I lift up my head,
and as I open my eyes again,
I look out my window and I see the sun rise…
and I feel a hand upon my shoulder,
and I hear a voice telling me that
Tomorrow Never Knows who any of us will be,
but God did not ever do anything for no reason
and that if I just hold on a little longer
I would one day be saved and find true peace.

I had always been a believer –
I even remember sitting across a table
and sharing a beer with the Devil-himself
in Vegas in September of 2001…
I have seen and I have heard people pray for their lives –
but God never once spoke to me directly:
but maybe he is now?
I have spent my entire life
running the roads and seeing every wonder
of color to be found in the United States of America –
but it wasn’t until the moment when I was woken up
and saved by the light that greeted me this morning,
after the life that I had been living ended,
and I decided to take my life into my own hands
and walk away from all that I had ever known –
leaving behind what I knew
had been holding me back like an anchor:
my old house, my record-player, my life,
and my daddy’s fully-loaded
50 year-old revolver.

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My short-story “Up In Smoke”

Link Mark Hastings Short-story , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Check out my short-story “Up In Smoke”: http://wp.me/P58vDG-BC

Up In Smoke -photocopy‘Up In Smoke’

My Poem ‘Only for you’

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

It’s hard to believe
it was just a year ago,
it’s unbelievable to think
that before this time last year
we had never met face to face;
it’s incredible to think back
over the last 12 months
about everywhere we have been
and all that we have done,
it’s breathtaking to remember
every memory that we both made together,
and to know only the secrets
about moment that only you and I know.
It’s been 52 weeks of close-encounters
like nothing that could ever be matched
even by a visitor from outer-space;
it’s been epic, it’s been amazing,
it been magical, it’s been fun…
the last year, since the first time
we both came eye to eye with one-another,
have been the best days of my life –
there hasn’t been a day, or a night,
that has gone by since the first time I saw you
and I fell under the spell
of your beautiful and hypnotizing eyes,
that I have not thought about
that life-changing moment when I felt
both lost for words and happy beyond-content –
when I saw your gorgeous face
and I was forever captured
by your transfixing star-light.

You can’t know what a moment in time
will mean to you until it happens,
but I knew even before I met you –
when all I knew was your voice and your picture –
that you were both a blessing and a wish-fulfillment;
you can’t know how much your life will change
until you meet someone who you just can’t get enough of –
and I could have never have known how happy I would be
until you became my world and my eternal soulmate;
you can’t truly know yourself
until you meet the person fated to be
the other-half of your beating-heart;
you can’t know true love until your reality
eclipses all the beautiful visions of your dreams –
when I was blessed by you I knew from that instant
I would never be the same and that no distance
to get to you to be with you
would ever be too far.

Every moment that we spend together feels like a dream;
every kiss that we share is something powerful to me;
every hug, every cuddle, every stroke of your perfect face
is like a miracle – to hold an angel such as you are
means more to me that I could ever say;
every “I love you” that crosses my lips
for you and only for you is my way of telling you
that I am yours forever, and that no matter where I am
there is never a second when I am not thinking about you,
dreaming about you, and loving you uncontrollably
more than I could put into words –
because you are the meaning of my life
and the light of my day,
and my heart and my love
will always be only for you.

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My Poem ‘The Messenger’

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

Everybody is here on this Earth,
everybody is a part of this world,
for a reason – but, sometimes,
most of the time, more often than not,
people have no idea why…
I, however, know exactly why I am here,
why I am alive, and what my reason to live is
and will be until the day I die:
I am a messenger, but not a messenger
that you may expect,
I do not look like any “messenger”
that I have seen in my life –
I do not wear a uniform,
and what I does not always require me to drive…
I suppose I am like an old-fashioned telephone receiver,
and when I receive a very important call
with a very important message to be delivered to someone
I answer it without question or hesitation
and I go to pass on what I have been asked to deliver.

I never know who the sender is,
I never know who the recipient will be –
I only know a face, sometimes I even know a first-name;
I do not know what the message I am delivering is
sometimes until the moment that I deliver it…
I don’t even know where I am going
until I see the signs showing me the way
to where I need to get to –
it’s like I am painting a picture of something
that hasn’t happened yet as I take each and every step,
and it is only at the end of my delivery
that I can see the complete picture in its entirety,
like stepping back and looking at a canvas
newly-framed and mounted on the wall of a gallery.

I have delivered more messages than I can remember:
a young man sitting on a bus…
I remember telling him something
that his older sister wanted him to know:
that even though she had run away from home she still loved him
and that they would see each-other again one day –
some of the messages are so emotional to deliver,
I cannot help but break-down in tears
as I give them their message,
but in the same breath I love being the bearer of hope
and that sometimes invisible and silent hand
upon a person’s shoulder
telling them that every-thing is going to be alright.

I am not sure why I was chosen…
I am not sure who it was who chose me…
I am not sure if I am doing God’s work…
I am not sure what happens next
after I reach out, on behalf of someone else,
to another person…
I am not sure if my delivery of the message
is delivered in the same way as was intended –
most of the time I can deliver
what the message is with a look
and with a burst of thought,
like I am the conductor
of some kind of psychic-electricity;
sometimes I just let the message do all the work
and I just watch from behind my own eyes
while my body acts as if it has been possessed
by some kind of magical curse.

To most people who meet me,
I am nothing more than a stranger;
to a higher-power,
I am the one whom they chose
to be their psychic-amplifier;
to the sender of the messages that I send,
I am a link to someone who they want to talk to
without having to use their own voice –
I am their secret-teller,
I am one of their story-tellers…
I am here, I am there,
to be close and near to someone,
so that I can be who from a small child
I was always destined to be:
‘The Messenger’.

My Poem ‘Buzzing’

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

When you get some good news,
it is like you are a honeybee
drunk on the nectar of a flower;
when you hear that things are happening
the way that you hoped they would,
it can feel like you are walking on air;
when you are told something that makes the world
look even more bright and beautiful,
you cannot help but smile from ear-to-ear;
when you see evidence
that whatever you have been doing
for longer than you can remember
actually has meaning and matters,
you start to see and feel happiness
as if it were something new
that you had never known before,
and you start to believe that there is someone
in this world who truly does care.

A new car, a new job –
the means and the motivation to go where you want
so that you can do what you want to do
is something that some people take for granted;
a new direction, a new life –
the freedom to be something and somebody different
in a brand new environment
is something that some people have never had,
but it is what they have always wanted;
a new story, a new chapter –
a break-away from the cycle of the monotony
that some people often fall into
and sometimes cannot figure out
how to see what else is out there
that they may have been missing;
a new opportunity to shine
comes like a brand new sunrise –
but sometimes to get something in return
you have to put something of yourself out there first –
like tossing a coin into a well, or a fountain…
sometimes you have to spend a token of your own
so that you can stimulate and disturb the waters
of that to which you are wishing.

Being at the right place, at the right time,
is not a science – it is a matter of fate;
being at the right point in your life
for you to be gifted your hearts-desire
sometimes only happens once –
it is like the feeling of butterflies in your stomach
that you get when you suddenly stop
but the world feels like it is still spinning;
being on the verge of a new adventure
is always amazing beyond any words
that could ever be estimated;
being hopeful, happy, enthusiastic, and optimistic,
at any time that you are lucky to feel that way
is a blessing to your heart, your mind, and to your soul,
that makes every part of you feel
like they are in a state of ‘fluttering’ –
like the sound of the wings of a bumble-bee
that vibrate so fast they are quite literally buzzing.