My Poem ‘Eye-Catching’

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

City lights at night;
shining multi-coloured baubles on a Christmas tree;
the sparkle in someone’s look that catches your eye;
flashing billboards and illuminated signs
that are like special-effect explosions from a movie.

Things designed to stand-out;
colours that always elicit an effect;
emotions that flood all your senses
from the instant that they are first felt;
beautiful creations that are perfect.

Birds, animals, insects, fish,
dolphins, mammals, humans,
all have a sense of beauty and attraction
and that can be explicitly seen
when they are attempting to attract the attention of a mate;
everyone and every thing uses a combination of many things –
sound, colour, movement, interest, smell, intuition –
to drive the sense of their opposite sex wild,
like opening up an overwhelming emotional floodgate.

Nature teaches us that nothing happens by accident;
instinct shows us that no matter how strong we are,
or how much we resist,
we can be captured and compelled to do things out of the ordinary;
the shining white moon above teaches us
that depending on the time of the month
even the way we think can be altered,
and in turn certain things can even affect the way we act;
love teaches us that there is nothing else like it
in the entire universe, and its intensity,
depth, feeling, and complexity,
is beyond any psychology or scientific theory.

Emotional attachment is a great and wonderful thing;
a persons reaction to even the sound of music playing
can tell you so many things;
our visual perception reaches into our soul sometimes
and creates a reaction deep within us
that can explode out of us like lava from a volcano,
and it can feel truly amazing.
The way are brains are wired, and what we think,
and what we do with what we see,
all depends on what we find fascinating,
exciting, mesmerizing, and eye-catching.

My Poem ‘Smile’

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

There are smiles to be found,
there are smiles to be seen,
there are smiles of all kinds and all sizes –
a silent smirk, a confident grin,
the exaggerated joy of that of a clown;
there are smiles that gleam,
there are smiles that are among the greatest of life’s prizes.

Many things can make a smile;
many things can be read from a single expression;
many things are a matter of style;
many things matter, however the simplest of things
sometimes leaves the most lasting of impressions.

Many things can make you smile;
many things can amuse us and delight us;
many things can fill us with so many feelings,
and there importance can be as special,
beautiful, and life-changing,
as a journey along the river Nile;
many things that seemingly happen by accident
are those that are the most precious.

Seeing someone smile is a joy in itself;
seeing a smile is good for your health;
seeing a smile is like seeing a ray of sunshine;
seeing a smile is a way to stop time.

Someone beautiful, someone you love,
someone with their own gravitational pull,
someone who shapes your thoughts and expressions-
like the most phenomenally written character of fiction
from your favourite story in your favourite book;
something that even an animal can do;
something that is magical, meaningful, lasting, and versatile;
something that a child doesn’t take long to learn how to do;
something that every day we would all never stop doing,
and if we had to do so it would be a trial –
so make it your mission daily to look for, see,
give yourself, and give another,
a reason to smile.

My Poem ‘World Wide Watcher’

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

The preoccupation of the poet;
the articulation of the artist;
the wonder of the writer;
the drive of authenticity of a director on a movie set;
the character in the cuisine of a chef in their signature dish;
the seascape, the solitude, the sense of serenity,
the smell of salt from the sea water all around,
that you live to inhale every day if you live the life of a sailor.

A poet looks at the world and sees infinite depth,
and the connections that bind everything with everyone
that are always there and have been sustaining nature,
the planets, the stars, the universe,
since the beginning of time;
an artist captures a moment in time and preserves it,
and imbues emotion and feeling into it,
and captures a piece of themselves in their painting,
sketch, sculpture, monument;
a photographer use their camera as if it were a macro-scope,
and they show just how fleeting and precious every moment is,
and that life is like the arc of a rocket –
that twists and turns, before finally leaving the atmosphere –
and is not just a straight-line;
a normal person, living their life from day to day,
who has no philosophical or artistic leaning or orientation,
knows that there are things in life that are important.

Everyone who has sight, feeling –
a sense of change going on around them,
passed them, inside them,
that is a continuum and a state of energy
that could be conceptualized as a constantly-flowing river –
sees, but cannot understand the answer to why life is the way it is,
but who will always be like everybody else:
a fully-fledged, world wide watcher.

My Poem ‘The Lost Notebook’

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

Something just doesn’t feel right;
something about me feels missing;
I have an idea for a poem that I want to write,
but something strange and unlike me has happened:
I don’t have my poetry notebook,
I do not have my pen –
I can feel the creation and formation of a piece of art
beginning to play, inspired by the world around me,
to which I am listening,
but I have no way to make my thoughts real
so that that can be written and read on a page.
I feel like I am in a daze, and I cannot concentrate, or settle down;
I feel like I am without my heart and soul –
a blank page and a lost poet,
wishing more than anything
that he had a blank page in front of him to write upon,
as is always, usually, the way.

I feel like a conductor without an orchestra;
I feel like a driver trying to drive a car
without a steering-wheel;
I feel like a soldier trying to climb an insurmountable wall;
I feel like the landlord of an empty bar;
I feel like the world is a dream and cannot be real;
I feel like I can hear a phone ringing loudly,
but I cannot reach for it to answer its call.

My notebook is special to me.
My notebook is my silent microphone, my inner-megaphone –
the closest thing that I have to a diary;
my notebook is one of many, but it is unique;
my notebook, and my notebooks, have been with me,
and I have lived and experienced things in life,
and I have written on every page of every one
of them every day of every week.

Fear strikes me deep:
‘where is my notebook?’,
‘what has happened to it?’, I ask;
‘did I leave it somewhere?,
‘did someone take it?’ –
I’m sure I brought it with me in my bag?
However, then it hits me,
then I realize and I remember what I did,
what has happened, and where my notebook is:
my notebook is sitting on my bed, in my bedroom,
with my pen on top of it,
waiting for me to open it up to the next blank page
and write some new poetry.

I feel stupid;
I feel foolish;
I feel like an idiot;
I feel like a gasping fish.
I feel like I am in a boat, on a river,
without a paddle, because I left it on the shore behind me;
I feel like I am showing how different I am to everyone
for the first time, and everybody knows that I am not myself,
and as if everyone is all at-once looking at me.

When I finally returned home,
and I opened the door of my bedroom,
I immediately caught a glimpse of my notebook,
and I saw that a ray of light from the sun
was shining through my bedroom window
directly on to the cover;
as soon as I saw it, the frown that I had been wearing
immediately turned into a smile,
and I picked up my notebook with both hands
and I held it as if I were holding in my hands
the face of a lover.

It might sound irrational;
it might sound strange to miss, and to fear losing,
something that to a lot of other people
is just a replaceable book –
but, to me, losing something that is connected to me,
and which I feel like is a part of me, I take incredibly personal.
To me, my poetry is like my child –
and that is why I never want to lose any notebook;
but this is the story of how and when,
I, one day, for a short time, had to live the life of a poet,
with a lost notebook, and no pen.

IMG_20141103_211856

My Poem ‘Take Away’

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

Sometimes you just want things fast and quick;
sometimes you can’t wait for what you desire;
sometimes you wonder of yourself:
if you rely so much on something,
does that make you an addict?;
sometimes you just have to have something,
to feel the rush that it gives you –
like passing your hand through the flame of a fire.

Waiting is a test of patience;
deciding on something is usually rudimentary;
anticipation can only fuel
what will be your final pleasurable response;
the arrival of what you crave
is one of the most satisfying sensations there could ever be.

We all know that we should savour every moment;
we all know that a special time cannot ever be repeated;
we all feel a tinge of sadness when an experience is over,
because we know deeply what it meant;
we all miss the years, summers, Christmases,
dreams, friendships, kisses,
and care-free laughs that we had when we were a kid.

Things come, things go;
we all need to be recharged in some way sometimes,
like a solar-powered invention that needs the light of the sun;
we all need to see what nature is always happy to show.
We all need a wave of momentum to carry us through every day;
we all need an idea in our minds to change the way we think,
in even the smallest of ways;
we all need to remold ourselves sometimes,
as if we were made out of clay;
we all sometimes need the instant emotional
and physical take-off that can only be had
from a take away.

My Poem ‘As the song says’

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

I am only ‘Human’;
I live to ‘Imagine’;
In my ‘Imagination’
I have been ‘To the Moon And Back’;
I love intensely, endlessly,
‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’;
I have seen the face of ‘Heaven’;
when I was younger, I used to wish
that I had been ‘Born In The U.S.A.’;
I have stood high above the world
and have been captivated by the awe-inspiring
height I am standing at ‘All Along The Watchtower’;
I would give ‘Anything’ to look at my own reflection
and be the ‘Man In The Mirror’;
I would love it if I could make some moments
last forever, and ‘Stay Another Day’.

My ‘Burning Heart’ has never burned hotter or brighter;
my taste for life is as sweet as ‘Chocolate’;
my best has never been ‘Closer’;
my ‘Human Nature’, my inside-out emotions,
let me feel, see, and allow me to ‘Dance In The Dark’;
my new day feels ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’;
my hope has the power of a ‘Kiss from a Rose’;
my smile lingers;
I love my angel of inspiration,
and I could never ‘Let Her Go’.

The world and I play ‘Mind Games’;
the soundtrack around me makes me ‘Move Like Jagger’;
the world is able, this day and age, to bestow instant ‘Fame’;
nature is able to show you the truth of things,
daily from its ‘Little Black Book’,
and give everyone a dose of ‘Instant Karma’.

I am not just a ‘One Trick Pony’.
I embrace all things with ‘Open Arms’.
I sometimes feel ‘Out of Touch’,
but I always come ‘Back to Life’
when I feel ‘The Power of Love –
and I daily feel like I could run a marathon,
and climb to the top of high steps,
and raise my arms, as if I am ‘Gonna Fly Now’
like ‘Rocky’.
I feel like I know ‘Salvation’ when I ‘Say Something’,
and I sing to the one I love ‘Everything I do, I do it for you’;
as astronauts have silently said while ‘Walking On The Moon’,
as friends have felt ‘Always’, ‘Together’ –
especially those who were alive in the ‘Summer of ’69’;
and I never forget that ‘Life is a highway’,
that ‘True Love Never Dies’,
and that ‘The Best is yet to come’,
while we are all ‘Surrounded’ by the wonder
of a ‘Sky Full of Stars’, like the song says.

My Poem ‘Book Bag’

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

I am a writer.
I have always been the one to be seen
with his notebook open
and his pen ready to write in his hand.
I am a reader.
I have always been known to carry around with me
everything I could possibly need,
while I am walking and rediscovering the world,
in my constantly changing holdall and bag.

Wherever I go,
the bag that I have hanging from my shoulder
always has a book or two inside –
I carry around both of my own poetry books,
but I also always have the book that I am currently reading
at the moment with me too,
in case I accidentally, or intentionally,
find myself on a deserted island somewhere,
and I need a good story and compelling characters
in order to get by with and pass the time.

Just recently, right now, and usually,
my “book bag” has inside it:
my poetry notebook,
my books ‘Poet of the Sphere’ and ‘The Sound of Mark,
‘The Drawing of the Three’ by Stephen King,
and Ray Bradbury’s amazing ‘Fahrenheit 451’;
I just love the thought that I always have a place
and a world to go to, within my myself,
or within and under the covers of an incredible book.

I am never too far away from books and stories of every kind,
of varying depths of complexity, passion, language, and adventure;
I always have in my mind, if not in my hand,
tales of people and characters who live and breath
in real and fictional worlds in the past, in another life,
in the optimistic reality of an imagined future.

There are people who don’t read books,
who never even think about what they could possibly find
hidden and waiting for them
within the chapters and story of a classic;
there are some people who use exclamations to describe things,
but who have never felt the thrill of reading a true epic.

There are people who love to read and love stories,
and who read many things, in many ways,
and in this day and age they can do so electronically, anywhere:
books filled with romance, thrills, horror, life, mystery;
I, myself, am a purist –
someone who believes that the experience of holding a book in your hand,
feeling the weight of it, and flicking through the pages,
is part of reading a story that every reader should have;
and even though, in my opinion, I think that anywhere
and in any way creativity can be shared is the best thing ever,
and I am not against sharing art by any means,
I would always choose to have a story read
and ingrained in the paper pages of a soft-cover or a hard-back book –
and that is why I will continue to carry stories of my own,
and of other writers around with me, in my “book bag”.

My Poem ‘Albatross’

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

We all have our deep and dark fears;
we all want our own space,
but we never want to be completely alone;
we have all tasted loss and tears;
we all, sometimes, just want to hold someone,
and to be held by someone;
we all crave to hear a voice on the other end of a phone;
we all sometimes make the mistake of forgetting
who and what to us is a vital good luck charm.

I would not want to live without my muse;
I would not want to exist just in my head;
I would do anything to not be there to see
what lies at the other end of a burning fuse;
I would give everything, I would give my life,
to un-say some things that should never have been said.

Everything is meant to happen,
make no mistake in thinking
that life has a rewind button;
every stone cast out into an ocean
will fly, skip, and find its final resting place
on the sea floor;
you cannot ever know
where your final resting place will be,
but the choice of what we will find
and who will receive our last kiss and wish
is one that is always open to us all.

To be saved from ourselves,
we need to listen;
to be restored,
we need to remember who we are;
to live, we need to enliven;
to find our way,
we must follow the light of a guiding star.

Every feeling we have is a sign of deep truth;
every path can also be a frozen lake
that we must choose to go around, or walk across;
every heart-racing moment takes us back to our youth;
every thought and every action
can be both a blessing and a curse,
but they should feel like a triumph to be celebrated,
and not a burden to carry around with you,
like a metaphorical Albatross.

My Poem ‘Poet’s Corner’

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

I am sitting here writing;
I am sitting here musing about the world;
I am sitting here enjoying a coffee-
the voices of people,
and the sounds of everyday life;
I am sitting here alone at my table;
and on the table next to me
a fellow poet is meeting up
and having a conversation
about how they just wrote a new poem,
about how beautiful the new day’s morning is,
and about things that they have seen
which they find exciting, inspiring, amazing,
and they sound just like I do in my head,
and I cannot stop smiling.

The poet sounds like they are from South Africa,
by their accent;
the poet is talking to their friend,
and they sound and they talk with so much
clarity and passion.

The poet is wearing a poppy;
the poet is not eating or drinking anything;
the poet is definitely someone after my own heart,
and obviously, to them, living, breathing,
writing, communicating, is not just a hobby;
the poet and his friend, it turns out,
have never met before,
and have only communicated over the internet,
until this moment;
the poet is describing a “great adventure”
that he has undertaken, and is still on,
and they are obviously, genuinely,
happy about the joys in their life,
and what they have gives them,
and what having a connection with people brings.

It is truly unbelievable what happens in life.
It is no accident who you may sit down next to.
It has been my experience that artists, writers,
poets, and people of deep thought passion,
and imagination, are drawn to each other
by a mutual drive;
it is the way of the universe
that people are who they are,
and the way that they are,
and there is an important reason
that people do what they do.

I watched in silence as the poet and his friend
exchanged gifts and spoke about what their presents
and their presence means to them;
I was hypnotized by their conversation,
by their story, and by everything they said;
I was enthralled, but I was sad –
because I knew that I would probably
never see or hear these amazing friend again,
but I too was thankful to them both
for coming into my life,
even if it were only for a sparing,
precious, and short time,
and the whole time that I was in their presence
I was unbelievably energized and phenomenally inspired.

There are too many coincidences and commonalities
for life to be just a string or a chain of accidental encounters,
there are too many things that matter to too many at once
for them to be unconnected,
even if they are the separate lives and stories of strangers.
There are so many places on this Earth
which attract people who share a brilliant,
beautiful, open, heart of a storyteller;
there are places like this place
that I am sitting in right now
that have a meaning and a power to them –
which I like to describe, and which I believe,
are amazing poet’s corners.

My Poem ‘Heaven is a library’

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

Surrounded by an infinite,
amazing, incredible, epic,
beautiful, endless,
collection of books –
the most breathtaking, awesome,
and extraordinary, hive of information,
stories, words, facts, writers, and authors,
from all around the world,
from every century of mankind –
I am sitting here listening to beautiful piano music
being played by an old man who, to me,
simply wants to play, feel, remember,
share and bring joy.

Every second that I spend walking around,
looking, sitting, listening,
staring out of giant glass windows,
lost in my own world,
connecting and passing through someone else’s story –
seeing them, meeting them, listening to them,
being inspired by them –
I feel as if I am in heaven,
and I could so easily and happily never leave this place;
because this place, the library, to me,
is a perfect place, a special place,
a place that is a hub, that not only connects
the people who visit it,
but also every person who has ever lived.

I feel myself drifting away,
being carried by the music;
I feel intoxicated by the smell, the taste, the touch,
the feeling all around, in everyone,
in every mind, in every book;
I feel emotional, because as I watch the outside world,
who are not with me here in this incredible,
magic, idyllic, library,
who are walking around under a blue sky,
through a forest of tall buildings,
and I want to tell them to come inside
and experience what I am feeling,
think what I am thinking,
listen to what I am listening,
know me and know what brought me to this library
and keeps bringing me back,
and how important a place, an Eden on Earth,
like this is to me,
and to all of us who are living this life
that we are living.

I can feel my heart pounding in my chest;
I can feel my imagination burning and shining like a star;
I feel overwhelmed; I feel at my best;
I feel like I can touch
and hear my own my own inner-muse and poetic spark.
The library is not as old as some,
but to me this library is as rejuvenating,
energizing, and as radiating as a sun.

I am here; and where I am, to me,
is holy-ground, and a source to find and know
the secret of all humanity –
where it has been, where it is going –
and a place to discover and see it in all its glory,
to walk around, work in, study in,
read in, write in, congregate in,
listen to people and music in,
to talk in, and make the most of every wonderful second of;
because this place is a miracle of beauty,
and proof-positive to me, as I have always believed,
that heaven is a library.