art

My Poem “Full Circle”

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

When you first start out
at doing something
you do not know just how
transformative what you
have chosen to do will be…
when you first start out
at doing anything
you are usually merely
dipping your toe into the ocean
of whatever new frontier
you are choosing explore…
when you first start out
looking for a reason
and an opportunity
to further develop
your new found pursuit
you usually try to practice
your art at every hour
of the day and the night
until whatever melody and rhythm
that you are attempting to play
with whatever instrument you have
at your disposal feels
and sounds just right.

When you are first starting out
and trying to figure out whether
whatever you have discovered
will be a short-term or a life-long
passion you usually have moments
when you start to question
everything about what something
means to you and why, and ultimately –
if something truly means
that much to you then you will
walk to the ends of the Earth
trying to find the end of the threads
that binds everything that makes
you who and what you are together.

When you first start creating art,
when you first start acting
on your instincts,
when you first start believing
that you can contribute something
to the tapestry of life on this
planet that is truly beautiful,
then you start to grow and become
something new at the same time
that you realize that
what you are actually doing
is walking a path that begins
and ends in the exact same place –
and when as you live longer
and as you see more of
life’s bigger picture
then you come to realize
that the universe, and the life
of everything and everybody,
is a journey that everybody takes
the long way round one big circle.

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My Poem “Superpower”

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

The life of an artist
is not always easy…
the inspiration imbibed
by an artist is the combination
of a marathon of many steps
of a long journey…
an artist sometimes has to walk
a line between darkness and light…
relationships, experiences, loss,
the stories of other people
are a vital contributing factor
in how an artist will grow
and what an artist will choose to create…
the art of an artist is
a subjective perspective of life
that is neither wrong nor right.

The explosive power of an artist’s muse
is unparalleled and indescribable,
and when fully harnessed
the inspiration felt by an artist
can feel as amazing and invigorating
and as dangerous as holding
a stick of dynamite…
art is an obsession and it can be
as addictive as a drug,
and as intoxicating as love.

Love inspires art,
and art inspires love…
art can be seen below,
as well as above…
in my opinion, artists
are like superheroes
and the gift to be able
to make art is a miracle…
art can save people,
and artists who make art that matters
have a responsibility to instill
into their creations ideas
that will help other people dream
and achieve things in their life
that will flower and continue
to reinvigorate the gift
that is their inner light
and their ultimate source of power.

My Poem “The Idea Hunter”

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

No one knows where ideas come from
nor where ideas will lead…
no one knows what an idea will do
nor what it will be until it is free…
no one knows who will be
the originator of an idea –
however, once an idea becomes something
that can verbalized, physical and “real”,
then an idea has a tendency to spread
like wild fire until it is captured
and it morphs into a form
that can be easily described.

No one knows how an idea
will change the world…
no one knows how an idea
will change a person…
no one knows how ideas take on a life
of their own the way that they do,
but when they do run away with themselves
ideas can sometimes have the gift
of finding a way to scale over walls,
to penetrate through solid stone,
to lift people into the stratosphere,
to free people of their fears,
to colour a person’s dreams
with all the hues of the rainbow.

For as long as I have been alive –
especially since I have been
expressing myself through poetry –
I have been venturing to places,
I have been meeting people,
I have been climbing high,
I have been digging deep,
I have been an imbiber of life,
in awe of the universe of wonder
in which I am a constant idea hunter.

My Poem “Artistic Heroes”

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

I am definitely no John Lennon,
Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Bob Dylan,
Michelangelo, or Vincent van Gogh –
however, they are some of the poets
of music, words, colours,
prolific and deep expression
who are among the members
of some of my artistic heroes.

I am no Shakespeare,
Stephen King, or Neil Gaiman –
however, I am also an author
and a writer who wants to
inspire, to enlighten, to entertain,
and to take the readers of my poetry,
my stories, and the characters
who I have written about
and described, on a journey
that they will never forget
which is unquestionably
a pure creation of my own
varied and constantly
curious wandering imagination.

I am no Albert Einstein,
Stephen Hawking, or Elon Musk –
however, I too think about things
and I wonder why things are the way
that they are and if there are
answers to the questions
that many people daily ask,
like: What is the true nature of life?
Is time-travel possible?
Who or what created
the universe, and why?
Will people one day be living,
breathing, existing, and communicating
every day of their life solely
within the illusion of a simulation?

At my heart, I am a dreamer…
at my best, I am an optimist…
at my most inspired,
I am a man without regret,
without reservation,
without any kind of fear of the unknown,
nor without any worry that
I will one day lose my life-long
obsession with discovering
as much knowledge and inspiration
from the depths and the frontiers
of this limitless universe as I possibly can –
and one day I hope that I will get to meet
all of my artistic heroes in one place
and swop stories with them
about the road that they all took
to get them from where their story began
to the place where they were inspiring
the dreams of many and colouring
the consciousness of the world’s
imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
– Albert Einstein

My Poem “Everything that will ever be”

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

When I was a child
I had a poster on my bedroom wall
of the planets of the solar system –
our local galactic neighbourhood
which consists of some rocky, some icy,
some gaseous, some barren, some hostile,
spheres, worlds of every kind,
of every size, of every colour,
of every temperature –
and that was what first introduced me
to celestial names like “Mercury”, “Mars”,
“Saturn”, “Jupiter”,
and the ring of all manner
of rock and ice that lies
and encircles us on the outer-fringes
of our backyard of space,
that is barely effected by the gravity
of the sun at the centre of our solar-system,
called “The Kuiper Belt”:
names that I had never heard before,
but which have since not left
the vocabulary of my imagination.

Space… the unknown…
the discovery of all
the wonders of the galaxy, the universe,
has always been a draw for me…
when I was a child I used to watch
fictional space adventures on television –
within the episodes of “Star Trek”
and in science-fiction movies
such as “Star Wars” –
that fueled my dreams
and compelled my mind
into thinking about the possibilities
that hopefully await humanity in the future,
what we will achieve,
and the reaches of interstellar space
that we will explore at some time
in the near to distant future.

There has always been something
about the sight of the stars,
when each and every
one us look above at the night-sky,
that resonates with something
inside of us – something profound
that speaks to something
within every strand of our human DNA,
our consciousness,
our heart, our soul –
and which captures us
and takes us away
with the gravity waves that
that drive the giant leaps
of art, science, humanity,
and every once in a while
secrets and truths seep into
the mind of someone who seeks
to know the meaning of life –
such as the answer to the question
of how/whether the universe began
and if it will one have an end –
and inspire people of all ages
to never stop searching, digging,
and uncovering the vast
multilayered, multifaceted,
multidimensional universe
of infinity that we are a part of:
the multicolored garden
of experimentation and evolution
that is everything that has ever been
and everything that will ever be.

My Poem “Catharsis”

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

Whatever you internalize,
whatever you take in,
whatever you analyze,
whatever you hear,
whatever you taste,
whatever you touch,
whatever you see –
especially if it is something
that challenges you in some way –
at some point, ultimately,
has to be released and set free…
that is why art – poetry, painting,
drawing, movies, television, books,
theatre, carpentry, comedy, music –
is so important to society,
because it gives us an excuse
to externalize our inner thoughts and feelings.

Expression can be powerful…
creation can be trans-formative…
exposure to things can be inspirational…
discovering who you are and who you want to be
can define how, where, when,
and with whom you want live…
sometimes you only have an inkling
about what is bubbling away inside of you,
below the surface of your day to day thoughts –
and it is only at moments when your internal
defenses and barriers have been lowered enough
when what is within you is allowed to come out…
there is something evocative about
watching something being performed live –
like watching an artist or a band
let their art and their distinctive
sound and voice speak for itself –
that just overtakes you, consumes you,
and makes you do things and say things
that you would not ordinarily do.

The only way to find the answer
to a question is to ask it…
the only way to discover the truth
of something is to explore it…
the only way to get through life
is to live it, to fight for it,
to embrace it, to worship it,
to take chances, to take risks…
the only way to be is to be a poet –
because a poet lives every day
a life of reflection, of contemplation,
of inflection, of internalization,
of externalization, of expression,
of liberation and catharsis.

My Poem “The Art of The Act”

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

Every performer is a character…
everyone who performs on a stage,
on a screen, to a camera, to a microphone,
from a speaker has to adopt a persona…
every actor, every singer, every politician,
every comedian, every personality,
every person known for doing something
or for being somebody has to embody
a certain magic and emanate a certain gravity
in order to make their audience
fall under their spell…
everybody who has a gift
and who has this hunger within
to craft something of their own creation
and their own imagination
that they want to share with other people –
something that people like,
something that people understand,
something that people respond to
and empathize with – is an artist
with a heart and a soul deeper
than the deepest well…
everybody who plays at being someone
for a long time naturally has moments
when the character that they play
seeps into and starts to influence
the actions and the boards walked
by a performer during the moments
when they are being who they really are,
behind the mask of the character that they portray,
when they are doing the day to day
activities of real life…
every performer sometimes has moments
when they find it hard to see the dividing line
between one side of their personality and the others –
which can ultimately lead to moments when performers
look in the mirror and they ask themselves: who am I?
every performer wears a costume,
every performer has their own voice,
every performer longs to dive into a world
and be someone else – even if it is for a short time –
and every performer has their own back-story,
as well as the story that they tell themselves
within their mind which they are at the centre of…
every performer is a magician –
even if they do not directly advertise
that they perform magic…
every performer is an artist of an art…
every performer is constantly a student
and a teacher of those who follow them
and to those who they are walking
in the footprints of who are sometimes
so influential to a performer
that their performances are considered mythic…
every performer – no matter who they are –
in order to continue to do what they do
and to continue to love how they choose to live
often times have to play and practice at
being someone else and at having to act out
the performance at being the person
at the centre of the art their act.