beautiful

My Poem ‘Beautiful Extremes’

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

There is more happening
every nanosecond in the universe
than we could ever conceive
in a lifetime of imagining:
there is life emerging, evolving,
taking their first steps,
communicating, aspiring,
inventing, and understanding,
brand new concepts,
leaving the atmosphere of their planet,
seeking, meeting, interacting,
inspiring, believing,
knowing that they are not
the only intelligent life in their galaxy,
on a planet orbiting around a star,
existing with a purpose,
dreaming about other beings of life and light,
who are as inconceivable to us,
because we are in the dark about them
and who they are, as they are about us –
however, no matter how different we are from each other,
and no matter how we choose to express ourselves
in our own individual ways,
one thing unites everyone and everything in the universe,
and to all but who will be there at the end of all things,
and who will see the last few seconds
before everything starts again,
the knowledge of what it is that binds us all
will for now, and most likely for a few eons to come,
remain a tantalizing, compelling, inspiring,
driving, enlightening, fascinating, exciting, mystery.

The nature of planet Earth teaches us
that life will find a way to exist and thrive
in great extremes of environment,
even in a vacuum, even in a toxic soup,
even somewhere where the temperature is so low
and so past absolute zero that most things would die,
and even somewhere where a living thing
would spontaneously-combust
because the temperature is beyond
that of the hottest fire;
why things work out for some, but not for others,
is a constant cosmic question
that does not have a simple definitive answer,
because everything revolves around circumstance
and timing, and everything finding its match –
however, the meaning of life can be found
when you find the balance between what you have
and what you desire.

Believing in what we cannot see,
imagining what is impossible to imagine,
witnessing and remembering the light of what has been,
reading and interpreting the world and it’s moments
and years, like epic words and verses of poetry,
finding infinite connection, experiencing perfection,
holding in your hands, imagining in your mind,
feeling in your soul and in your heart,
that which is made in a place, and at a time,
is a miracle of beautiful extremes.

IMG_20150120_123709

My Poem ‘Ticket Love’

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

In this day and age,
the convenience of being able
to buy things, order things,
and have things instantly delivered to us
in no time at all, is a great thing
and it saves so much time and effort;
however, I believe that above all else,
you cannot beat the personal touch,
the physical feeling, the face to face,
the one to one connection, the delight,
and the warmth of being eye to eye
with another human being,
and sharing brief but amazing,
insightful, and rewarding moments,
with a wonderful ticket agent,
for example – smiling and shining beautifully
behind the desk of their kiosk.

When you walk into a box office,
and almost immediately the lovely smiling
and welcoming face of the ticket agent
instantly calms you and makes you smile,
and their soothing voice puts you at ease,
and comforts you when you inquire about a show
and a ticket and what is on and what is good to see;
in very day life, you do not often come face to face
with a polite, wonderful, charming, confident,
hypnotizing, gift of generosity and happiness,
as you are lucky to do so at one box office in particular,
and one ticket seller, who when you meet them,
you firstly won’t believe your eyes
and you may not believe the beautiful vision
that you see is actually real,
and, secondly, you wont believe that
out of all the people, and from the all the places,
you could have bought a ticket,
you picked the best ticket agent there is,
and you got incredibly lucky.

Everyone, and anyone, comes into the box office
and books tickets to see a multitude of things
that you can lay to see:
musical performances, pop band tribute acts,
things for all the family,
lectures, dancing, artistry, comedy,
every kind and form of variety –
and one of the best introductions
to all the available performances,
are the agents that you can talk to
about anything and everything from the word go,
and when you meet one agent in particular,
and from the first moment that you meet them,
they are your favourite
and you will go out of your way to come back
and book with the same amazing booking clerk,
and have them remember you too,
and every time you do,
the experience may be as great
as what you are hoping to see,
and as great as can be.

I know a ticket agent
who is amazing at what they do,
who loves their job,
who loves interacting with people,
and who always gives a hundred percent
at all the she does;
I know a wonderful person,
who not only sells tickets to see things
she also sells hope;
I know someone, who when you meet her
she will fill your vision
and ignite an amazing and phenomenal spark of joy
in your heart, and you will forever be excited,
and overcome with entrancing ticket love.

My Poem ‘Merry Me’

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

Life is full of surprises;
the days of the year fly by;
the best of your memories
are full of happiness and kindness;
seeing the silver-lining around every cloud
can be hard sometimes, but it is always there –
there is always hope, and you truly do not know
what is going to happen until you follow an idea,
take a chance, and, with all your heart, try.

The rising sun;
the shining moon;
the warmth of love;
the optimism of a crisp and beautiful magical blue-sky afternoon;
The sparkling and twinkling lights;
the golden star-spangled, heart-warming,
beautiful, sun-kissed, Christmas tree;
the festive feeling in the air
that surrounds everyone and makes everybody
not feel the cold touch of the winter air’s bite;
the noticeable electricity and breathtaking energy;
the communication; the connections;
the story of humanity; the magic of family;
the sharing of gifts; the feeling of togetherness
that is like a true miracle,
when it blooms from inside of you every Christmas.

Everything about this time of the year inspires me;
everything that I see, hear, and think about,
feels like a fresh start, a new beginning, another chance;
everything about this time of the year
brings out so much of the worlds beauty;
everything is a source and a reason to smile,
and fall into a constant, amazing, world of trance
at a moments glance.

At this time of the year,
and every day of the year if you can,
it is important to remember the stars of your life
that constantly shine and tell you
that everything will be fine
and all that matters is that you are OK;
at this time of the year
it is important to make time
for those who always find the time to think of you,
and who want to spend time with you,
and who want to share special moments with you –
over the phone, in an instant message,
or maybe even face to face at lunch
while enjoying a delicious carvery;
at Christmas time it is important to keep mementos
of the people who are important to you in some way;
at Christmas time it is important to think and remember
what and who always gives you a reason
to be happy, to be hopeful, to be grateful, to be merry.

My Poem ‘Ruby Slippers’

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

Sometimes the things that happen to us in life
can make us forget that there is magic all around us;
sometimes all we need to do
is meet that special person to remind us;
sometimes if we reach out and grasp a moment of importance
it can be like catching a star in your hand;
sometimes the world comes into focus,
we take in a breath, we close our eyes,
and when we breath out again,
and when we open our eyes again,
our perfect match can be waiting for us
right in front of us,
and all we had to do to be given this gift of connection
was to keep our faith in finding that special someone,
and giving ourselves over to fate and destiny’s plan.

We all sometimes need reminding
that as we are looking for someone,
someone is also looking in our direction;
but, as with everything that has the potential to be life-changing,
the right time and the right place is everything –
however, miracles of life and beauty happen every day,
and of the thousands that happen
two epic spectacles come to mind:
the setting in the evening,
and the rise in the morning of the sun.

If you meet someone, if something happens;
you have met that someone,
and that which has happened happened for a reason –
we are all guided, taught, inspired,
given seemingly accidental opportunities
to be introduced to a new and wonderful world,
and we are all sometimes just taken away
to see, live, and experience a life
where anything is possible,
where we can meet anyone who before
may only have been just a dream,
and whom we would only have spoken about
to someone else in whispers;
if life gives you the means to see behind
the magic curtain of the world,
so that you can see that there is even more beautiful
and fantastic things to see, worlds to be found,
and incredible people to meet,
take every chance, jump into the unknown,
and if doing that means that you have to do
what Dorothy Gale did in The Wizard of Oz, so be it –
so put on a smile, and make the most
of what you have been given and what you have found –
especially if that is a special person that you meet,
or perhaps a pair of ruby slippers.

My Poem ‘Dreams’

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

Dreams are where we live our second life,
and where we live out our thoughts and wishes;
dreams are the alternate reality
where anything you want to happen can happen
without consequence;
dreams are where we live out our fantasies,
and share hidden kisses;
dreams are where we can go anywhere we can imagine –
into a possible future that you hope will come true,
or the memory of a school trip that you had
to the south of France;
dreams can seem more real than reality,
and can feel like a more desirable place to live;
dreams can seem to last for days,
when you are deeply involved in the constantly changing
and evolving dream creation of another world;
dreams can seem like heaven,
depending on whom you are dreaming you are with;
dreams can seem strange, weird,
too good and fantastic to ever be true,
and wonderfully absurd-
however, dreams are as necessary to life
when we are asleep as oxygen is to us when we are awake;
dreams can be a cure, a therapy, what we need to stay alive,
but also a medicine that can be hard for us to take.

The dreams that we have when we are a child
are the best dreams that we will have in our lives-
especially the good ones;
the dreams that we have when we are an adult
are sometimes mostly filled with worry
and things that we constantly have
floating on the surface of our mind;
the dreams that we have when we are in another country,
or in a wonderful but unfamiliar place,
on holiday, are free of angst and expectation,
and are dreams of pure unbounded imagination;
the dreams that we have after meeting someone new
are as beautiful as what the world must be imagined like
to someone who has for their entire life been completely blind.

I have had hopeful dreams;
I have had beautiful dreams;
I have had dreams in which I have met people
I have wanted to meet since I was young.
I have had nightmares;
I have had bad dreams that have brought me face to face
with the source of all my fears.
I have had imaginary encounters that even to this day
I still remember having,
because they still continue to be more important to me
than to others they might seem.
In my mind, at night,
I have been able to rewrite the times when I was wrong;
I have dreamed of things that I do not clearly remember
in great detail the morning after,
but I have awoken in tears.
I have always been fascinated by the power of inspiration
and the infinite capacity of both the conscious mind,
and the unconscious mind, and I love remembering
and finding the answer to a riddle
played out before me in real life,
of something I once saw, felt, and did in my dreams.

My Poem ‘Lucky to be here’

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

Miracles are real.
Survivors are meant to survive.
Some people are strong enough
to withstand the grumbling of a world
without a scratch to feel.

Accidents happen every day in which someone dies;
however, when the same kind of accident reoccurs,
to someone else, they may unbelievably walk away without a scar,
and are able to tell others the tale
of how lucky they are to be alive.

The world can be a dangerous place,
there is no more chaotic and destructive force on Earth
than the Human race;
no one knows why or how long ago
the first domino of serendipity fell,
but the bones, cards, tiles, tickets, and stones,
that connect everything to everything,
still continue to fall,
and who will win at the end of existence’s game
no one can tell.

The reason our solar system formed and emerged
from the gaseous, rocky, and chaotic, cloud,
that orbited around our sun when it was yellow and young,
was not by chance;
the reason that Earth bloomed and became the flower of the planets,
and even gave birth to its own offspring, the moon,
is because the universe itself is in the middle
of a very fast, beautiful, and energetic, dance.

The reason human beings emerged from the ocean,
evolved, multiplied substantially,
and spread themselves around the world,
was because they had to diversify, learn, think, discover, dream,
and want to explore everywhere in order to discover
their defining nature and destiny,
and one day look and travel to the stars above
in order to forge a new link with their celestial cousins;
the reason why we are still here,
the reason why I am writing this,
and the reason you are reading this,
is because it was meant to happen –
and even now, from our actions and choices,
there will be repercussions.

I look up at the duck egg coloured blue sky sometimes,
and I think to myself ‘I have never seen anything more amazing’;
I look out at a sunset at the end of a day,
and I think, sometimes out-loud,
that I have never seen anything more breathtaking and beautiful,
and a sight that is truly worthy of a tear;
I look around at the people in my life,
and I see what connect me and keeps me alive
to enjoy the wonders of everything;
I look at myself, from time to time,
and I remember, as I look into my own eyes,
that I and countless people all around
are here for a reason –
because each of us is incredibly blessed and lucky to be here.

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 ‘Not just for the Summer’

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

Some songs are made and played
to catch peoples attention for a season;
some people we grow close to
enough to call them a friend;
some things are just fads that we have to have,
and be a part of for no good reason;
some relationships, short or long,
simply can never end.

If something means, or has meant something,
anything, to you, you can never forget it;
if a person touched you in some way,
then their feeling, and the way they made you feel,
will always remain;
if something can be remembered forever,
it can be done so with the mind and the pen of a poet;
if someone knows you, and if you truly know and love someone,
you should never feel alone when standing in the rain.

When you go back to a place,
if you are like me, you can also go back to another life,
another time;
when you are standing outside in the dark,
and the stars above make you think you are in outer-space,
if you are like me, you can relive and remember
even the tiniest of details
and be completely intoxicated by them again –
as if they were a bottle of wine.

We can sometimes make ourselves believe
that we have lost everything,
because our perception of the world
and of our circumstances appears to have been painted in that way;
however, the next day, in a new light,
everything is actually all right, and okay.
We can sometimes say goodbye to someone
and think that that friendship and connection
has been broken and is over;
however, in my experience, nothing,
especially a goodbye is ever forever,
and a bright, beautiful, inspiring,
phenomenal light, that rivals even that of the sun,
is not just for the Summer.

My Poem ‘Modern Muse’

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

The modern muse of music,
poetry, art, life-
the light that guides
and shines so bright,
the love that stays with us
that we obsess over,
the fragrance that tantalizes us
that comes from everything, everywhere,
that can be seen atop the beautiful mountains of Snowdonia
and felt on the wind at the White Cliffs of Dover.

The modern muse that we capture instantly every day
with the cameras of our mobile phones,
the real relationships that we have and cherish
that could never be cloned;
the things that matter to us the most,
because they make us feel on top of the world;
the house of cards that we constantly want to rebuild;
the changing tone that accentuates the seasons,
the way to exorcise your inner-demons;
a way to live in beautiful harmony;
a maze of discovery;
an angel that looks differently
than would be expected;
a song that explains everything your mind and heart
have longed to have been depicted.

A final word, a final sentence;
the voice of a songbird;
a perennial flower and symbol of our precious existence;
a sky that is all blue that reminds me of you;
a path of clues; a spark of beauty;
a here, now, forever,
modern muse.