My Poem ‘Searching…’

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A night-time astronomer…
a day-time blue-sky observer…
a cosmic-archaeologist
who uncovers the face of the past
by looking back in time
as they look up to the stars…
an Earth-bound poet
who looks at the world around them
and imagines a similar beautiful day,
in a far-away country,
that will always live forever in their memory –
in spite of the speed of time
that always wants to pass by too fast…
a nostalgic boy looking through
a physical family photo-album…
a book-lover in a book-store
looking for a new book title
to jump out at them…
a self-confessed bohemian young woman
who rides the Subway every day
with their head-phones on
and their music-player in their purse…
a doctor in a hospital E.R.
desperately listening for a heart-beat
and feeling for the unmistakable tremor of a pulse.

I search… we search…
everybody searches throughout their life –
some search for truth in darkness,
some search for and find joy
when they are given a gift of inspiring light,
and some use their gifts to help others,
and some use the answers they receive
to the questions they ask to create art,
to write, to give others a reason
to give them the gift of their precious time.

Everybody in life is looking for something different;
everybody in life likes different things at different times;
everybody in life has priorities and personal opinions
about what in life is the most important;
everybody in life at times journeys low,
and everybody in life at times ascends high.

A person, a place, a name, a face,
an identity, a commonality,
a heaven on Earth, an interface –
we all use our sight,
we all use our senses,
we all use different sources of light
to mend or break-down fences;
we are all surfing a wave of something…
we are all the beholders of a star in our life
that is worth protecting…
we are all in a constant state of changing…
we are all on a never-ending trek
to find that which has been waiting for us
the entire time that we have been searching.

TCTTS: First verse

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My Poem ‘The Stranger Things’

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The stranger things are,
the stranger things matter;
the stranger things are what shine
far away in the dark,
and they are as beautiful and mysterious
as the planets and the stars;
the stranger things become
the more that we think about them,
and the more that we become invested
in the strange things of the world
the more our heart beats faster.

Everybody is “normal” in their own way,
and yet equally as strange;
everybody is a character in someone-else’s story,
and a figure in someone-else’s painted landscape;
everybody can be “at home”
at the same time that they are “away”;
everybody can be beyond who they see
when they look at their own reflection in a mirror
and wear within their mind a vastly-different face.

To me, the stranger things are
the more interesting they are;
to me, the longer something stays unexplained
the more intrigued and the more drawn to it I am;
to me, the stranger things in life –
the mysterious, the one-of-a-kind, the extraordinary –
are constantly leaving their mark for me to find,
like a calling-card;
to me, the stranger things –
the unknown, the questions, the fables,
the stories of aliens, fairies, and monsters –
are so inspiring and amazing,
the more I hear, the more I see, the more I imagine.

What can seem strange to one person
can seem “every-day” to another;
what can seem fantastic to a child,
or to someone who is young-at-heart,
can seem to someone with a closed-mind
like something that could only be found
between the pages of a book-cover;
what I have learned in my life,
as a story-teller and a story-reader,
is that anything and every-thing
can be a fountain and a treasure-trove
of thoughts and energy –
and that life, if nothing else,
is never boring and can be always interesting;
living and breathing in a world deeply
brings with it oracles of gifts,
and they can be found in the strangest of places
filled with the strangest of things.

My Poem ‘Beam me up!’

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“Space… the final frontier…”
50 years ago, the voyages and the adventures
of the crew of the Star-ship ‘Enterprise’
began a universe, a saga, and a story,
envisioned from the out-set as a
“wagon-train to the stars”…
now, half a century after the first episode
of the television series ‘Star Trek’
first premiered on American screens,
fans young and old –
some whom were born before,
some whom were born after, September, 1966,
from all around the world,
of all walks of life, colour,
and ethnicity, are joining together
in celebration of the original ‘Star Trek’ series,
and its many film and television spin-off series,
to champion every story, every episode, every ethos,
that each and every one of which propagated –
and it is those optimistic and hopeful
visions of a future which has inspired
and compelled countless men, women, and children,
to reach beyond and journey into the unknown…
one day, perhaps in the life-time
of those who are young today,
humans will set-foot upon another planet far from Earth,
and the entire world will unite as they watch it happen –
and everybody will have the visionary creator of ‘Star Trek’,
Gene Roddenberry, to thank for creating
a world of infinite possibilities
where there exists life of infinite diversity
in an infinite number of combinations.

I have been a fan of ‘Star Trek’ since I was a child…
I have watched every episode of every television series,
and every minute of every ‘Star Trek’ motion-picture,
over and over again…
I have imagined in my dreams what it would be like
to be the Captain of my very own star-ship,
with my own crew, embarking on an adventure
of my own imagining into the vastness of space,
to the outer-reaches of the galaxy…
the thought of traveling faster than the speed of light
has always been enough to make my imagination
race away at warp-speed into the depths of wonder
that lie among the strange new worlds,
and the new civilizations, of the galactic-wilds…
I have so much to thank the writers, the actors,
the artists, of every ‘Star Trek’ adventure for –
even to this day, their influence continues
to inspire me and drive the course of my imagination –
because they have instilled in me a great love
of stories of the fantastic,
especially those of the science-fiction orientation.

‘Star Trek’ has taught me so much!
‘Star Trek’ has given me the gift of wanting to understand
the seemingly-incomprehensible, and why it is important
to treasure every moment that we are alive –
because each-and-every-one will never come again –
and what we leave behind is not as important
as how we have all lived…
and, more than anything, ‘Star Trek’ has given me
the gift of wonder and a love of embracing
the infinite possibilities of existence…
and I swear that if I were contacted
by a star-ship of any kind from another planet
that could transport me to their ship
in the blink of an eye,
“to boldly go where no-one has gone before”,
I would say, at the top of my lungs:
“beam me up!”.

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My Poem ‘Rush’

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Children dash… children sprint…
children can make moments last…
children don’t even realize
just how much the days of their early lives
race by so fast –
because, to a child, they can act as quick
as they can think, in a flash,
and their drive is the endless energy
that they find at a moments-notice,
even before the adults around them
have time to blink.

Even as they grow up,
some people do not lose their love
for the sensation of the wind against their face,
even as other interests compel them,
some people never give up their love of a chase –
as if they are still in school on sports-day
still competing in a race;
even as their hair-colour changes,
some people can never stop their heart
beating to a charged rhythm;
even as the world creates new obsessions and distractions,
some people live better in mind, body, and soul,
when they are pushing themselves to the limit –
like a soldier on a mission.

It’s why a boxer enters into a ring…
it’s why a rock-star gets up on a stage to sing…
it’s why someone keeps doing something that they love…
it’s why people run, dive, fly, and jump…
it’s because, when you feel like you have got lightning
surging through your blood,
you never want to halt doing
whatever gives you that unbelievable rush.

My Poem ‘A Part of Me’

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You’re the picture in my wallet…
you’re the woman of my dreams…
you’re the star I daily orbit…
you’re beautiful beyond belief…

You make me who I am…
you make me smile and you make me laugh…
you make me happy when you hold my hand…
when you look at me you make me feel
like I am 20 feet-tall,
and taller than the tallest giraffe…

When we look into each-other’s eyes…
when we both say ‘I love you’…
when we walk together under an unbroken blue-sky…
when we kiss and the Earth feels like it moves…

I want the moments we are together to last forever…
I want every wish that we share to come true…
I want to be the one who to you always makes things better…
I don’t ever want to stop giving all my love to you…

Because without you, to me, life would not be worth living…
because to me you are the most beautiful angel of paradise city…
because to me you are the magical light that opens my eyes
every day when the dawn is breaking…
because I have never met, and I have never known, anyone like you…
because, Melissa, you will always be a part of me
and the best thing that has ever happened to me.

melissa-Mark-picture in my wallet

My Poem ‘Boomerang’

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Throw that boomerang
as hard and as far as you can
high into the sky –
but make sure to watch it constantly
as it flies and then comes back around
with more speed and more energy
than what you put into it when you threw it,
because if you don’t anticipate its return
then it may end up hitting you
straight between the eyes.

Life is an open sky;
thoughts, actions, emotions,
and intentions are like a boomerang;
do unto others as you would have
done unto you is one of life’s
greatest philosophies to live by;
once you have light a fuse
connected to anything explosive
you run the risk that it is one day
ultimately going to go bang!

Actions have consequences;
words when spoken out-loud
are followed by echoes;
if you knowingly hurt someone’s feelings
then one day you too may find yourself
being hurt by someone or something
in ways that cannot be easily mended;
words, even those spoken
in the silent to the outside-world
confines of our own minds
find a way to spread themselves far and wide –
and where they may land
and what impact they may make
all depends on the reason
that they were said in the first place…
one word can haunt you worse
than any phantom or ghost.

I believe in karma,
and I believe that the world
is like a giant echo-chamber;
I believe in cause and effect,
and I believe that so-called “imperfections”
are in fact what make the world we live in perfect;
I believe that for there to be any kind of balance
there must be opposites,
and I believe that things do happen for a reason,
and I believe when things come face-to-face with you
don’t be afraid to go toe-to-toe
and eye-to-eye with them, or it.

The world is a sphere;
because of a little thing called “gravity”,
what goes up will always come back down;
sometimes the best way to move beyond
something that is bothering you is to let it out –
I personally would recommend putting pen to paper
and then exorcising yourself of your negative thoughts
by throwing them into a fire;
be careful what you say and what you wish for –
because the world is always listening,
and most things that we do in life
come back around to us like a boomerang.

My Poem ‘The God of Sleep’

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It’s a shame that I can’t write
while I am dreaming,
just as I dream while I am writing –
because I know that what I imagine at night
would eclipse, and does, any and all
that I put into words in the sunshine
of the day-light…
fragments of my thoughts of the night before
remain in the morning, sometimes,
like the wreckage of a ship
that has run-aground on a beach –
but they are only pieces of a whole
and there are holes now
where unrecoverable dream-moments
used to appear so clear and so real,
but which are now lost
on an ocean of wonder and wishes
being carried out of reach.

Sometimes we have the same dream
over-and-over again,
and each time we imagine them
we remember more about them when we wake up;
why we all dream is still a question
that nobody can give a distinctive
and a correct answer to –
however, I believe the question of why we dream
is on-par with the question:
why do we fall in love?

We love because we must;
we dream because we are unable to stem the tides
of our imagination and our emotional flood;
we wade deep into a dream
when we are doing something in it
that means something to us;
when we dream we are hearing
and we are being pulled-under a spell,
after having been sprinkled by Morpheus’ dream-dust.

I often wonder what I do not remember
about the times that have now returned
to the ether of infinite time, depth, and colour;
like some people who remember their dreams,
I too wonder what they mean;
I often wonder what would happen
if all of our dreams and their content
were to become real and we could share
every detail of our dreams with one-another;
I have always believed that our dreams
are our doorways to a greater world –
a world that knows no bounds
and has no fixed borders,
and I believe that each time we dream,
when and where night and day meet,
we are being given a gift to hold-on to
and do with it what we will
by ‘Hypnos’ himself, the god of sleep.

My Poem ‘The Day-dreamer’

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

I am a boy in a bath-tub…
now I am a boy in a boat
on the surface of a pond…
within the blink of an eye
I am now a teenager
in the middle of a vast lake
surrounded by mountains…
I blink again and I am now racing
down a river, over rapids,
and all the while I am
a man in a boat without a paddle,
and then I reach the edge of a waterfall…
and when I open my eyes now I am on a sea
in the middle of an ocean of blue,
and overhead there is an unbroken sky
as clear as a new-born baby’s eyes –
and there I am, alone in my boat,
wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of little-blue jeans,
with a notebook and a pen settled in my lap…
and it is then that I drift away
and allow myself to be carried by the waves…
and within seconds there follows the end of the day –
the night surrounds me, the stars shine brightly,
the sea-air floods my lungs and my thoughts
more with every second and intake of breath…
I close my eyes again, and when I open them this time
I am among the stars in outer-space
being drawn to a new shore…
and when I blink once more
now I am clearly on the sea of an alien world –
where the sky is as golden as an Egyptian desert,
and the water beneath me is as red as a ruby…
when I momentarily look down at my notebook
and then I look up the picture before has changed again –
now I am encircling a vortex at unbelievable speed,
and the world becomes a blur…
and then I awaken in my bath-tub,
and I am a man of 35 –
a life-time of imagination returned to me
and took me on a journey of space and time
in the few seconds that I my eyes were closed…
now there is no fear…
now things are clearer…
I am on my way somewhere…
I do not know where life will take me next,
but I know that I will never stop being
a life-long day-dreamer.

TheDay-Dreamer

My Poem ‘The World of My Stories’

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A person’s life is filled with different characters;
a person’s world is filled with many horizons;
a person’s life can be organized and thought of
as like a book of interconnected chapters;
a person’s view of the world changes over time
as they live, experience, and grow older –
and, from my perspective, I am so glad
for the life that I have had and still have,
because my life is a trove of golden-moments
and a limitless garden of inspirational memories
and musings that thrive and infuse
the palette of my writing,
because there is so much in abundance.

Just as every solar-system has a star at its centre,
the world of my poetry and stories too has a sun
that it revolves around and gives it gravity
and keeps it spinning;
just as every planet has a combination of gases
that make up its atmosphere,
the world where my ideas are born from
has all that is needed to keep my internal world
alive and its creations breathing, living, and evolving.

Worlds are built over time
and of many components and ingredients;
over a life-time, and while writing a story,
there is a constant preoccupation
to find truth, sense, and balance;
some worlds can be vast, and some worlds can be small –
expanding and contracting, depending on a person’s
state of mind and their environment;
over time we all collect many things in many ways –
however, it isn’t until you start thinking about
writing a story of your own that you realize
that even the smallest of things
can be among that which is the most important.

Usually, the idea for a new story comes to me like a dream;
for the most part, what a story will be about
when I am writing one all depends and is centered upon
something I have felt or something I have seen;
when I first begin writing a story
it is like I am learning to walk again
and not worrying too much about or counting my steps;
when I get into a story and I have fully found my footing
and I know where my story is going
it is then that I race towards its ending
without fear of losing my breath.

I love writing stories –
however, to me, writing a story
is like running a marathon;
to me writing poetry is like going on a sprint
through the green and blue world of my head –
and it is while writing poetry
that I get to let my imagination go wild,
and I get to sometimes write what I see;
writing a story is like creating and making
something that to you is a labour of time and love;
I am a writer, and more than anything I love to write –
however, I sometimes feel like to describe
what I see when I look within
there could never be enough words,
and it is then that I wish I could find a way
to show people what lies within me
and take them on a tour
around the world of my stories.