beautiful

My Poem ‘Autumn’

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

The summer serenade has come to an end…
the leaves are changing colour
and are spiraling to the ground…
the door of a new, but familiar,
season of nature opens…
the outside air is growing colder –
even the tone of the music
that the wind blowing through the trees
and the buildings makes a different sound…
Autumn is with us now…
it is now ‘Fall’ as they call it in North America…
in some states and in some countries
they are beginning to take off the covers
and dust off mighty snow-plows,
and some of the birds in the trees
that have been nesting in the same nests
all summer-long and have been singing loud
their morning and evening songs
are taking flight and are heading
thousands of miles south.

Pumpkins are being harvested;
winter-coats are coming out of the closet;
when walking through a still leafy woodland
at the right time of the day,
when the sun is shining bright
and blissfully in the sky,
you can find yourself in the middle
of a shower of golden light;
when it is dark later in the morning,
but still breathtakingly beautiful,
and in the evening time,
the new season heralds the arrival
or darkness and stars far earlier
than at the same time on a Summer night.

Now it is the favourite time
of the year for some people;
now, when the children return to school,
is when there is a great buzz of enthusiasm
in the air – just as intoxicating
as the smell of a forest after a rain-storm;
now is when a great anticipation of delights
begins to build;
now, when change is at its most tangible,
is when, if are lucky and out among nature,
you can come up-close and see with your own eyes
marvels of the world like that of a baby fawn.

All is in transition;
a new filter to view the world through
descends before our eyes
as the Earth is now at its farthest from the sun;
moments experienced and shared
are like magical miracles sent from above;
now is the season to embrace what comes to you
while you are among the wilds of the open
and make the most of one of the most
magical seasons of life on Earth… Autumn.

My Poem ‘The Light at the end of the tunnel’

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

At the end of an alley of shadows,
a light in the distance like that of a star,
at the far end of a dark tunnel,
like a shard of sunlight through an open door,
the end of one journey, the beginning of another,
the place you have to reach
so that you can share
what brought you through the bad times
that you never thought would be over –
nothing can prepare you for that moment
when you catch up with your destiny,
when all the confusion of the past
falls behind and you can be the one
who you always wanted to be.

A ray of light from the heavens above,
a stream of energy from on-high,
a rainbow that forms when clouds of grey are broken –
a symbol of both hope and love –
can be like a miracle to those in need of one;
sometimes to find out what you should do next
you need to not push too hard
against what is coming towards you
and do what comes naturally
without you having to try.

Things are lost for a reason’
things are found when the time is right;
sometimes in your life you may go through
more changes in your world than Earth has seasons;
sometimes to over-come any fears
and insecurities that you may find within yourself
you have to plant new seeds
in the garden of your mind
that will one day grow into beautiful flowers
and trees of hope, and dig-up the weeds
that your garden doesn’t need –
and which are only serving
to take life, energy, and growth
away from what you need to thrive
and to keep your secret paradise alive.

Life might be a short four-letter word,
but its meaning and its route
is deeper and it is longer
than could ever be documented
or described with images or words;
a person’s life is a world…
within a world…within a world;
life is what you find when you stop
looking at the future
as if you are viewing it
through the wide-end of a funnel;
a life is what you can find
when you decide to stop walking
at the pace that other people
would have you walk –
and instead sprint like an athlete
towards the light that you see
at the end of the tunnel.

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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 ‘Lightning Days’

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

Where does the time go?
Sometimes it seems
and it feels like
time is like water rushing like a river,
and like a waterfall falling off
into the great unknown.

I wish that I could live my life
over and over again –
but only those moments that I love the most
and could never let go…
because, to me, home is a place
that you could never forget
and which feels like a part of you
and where you know with all your bones.

There is no better way to travel
than to travel with someone…
there is no better person to travel with
than with the one who you love…
there is no better time to travel than right now…
there is no better destination to travel to
than to the place where your heart belongs,
and the time that you spend there could never be enough.

Over the past two weeks
I have had the best days of my life;
over the last 14 days
I have experienced moments
that literally rocked my world;
over the past two weeks
I have made memories that I will live and breath
every day for the rest of my life;
over the last 14 days
time has flown by so fast,
it is as if I have been flying
with wings as if I were a bird.

Love, family, music, sunshine,
beauty, lightning, thunder…
so many amazing things were painted upon me
as if they were a rainbow of colour;
hugs, kisses, faith, belief…
I know now more than ever
that if you leap into something
and with all your heart
that the things that will follow
will be beyond anything
you could have before believed.

Lightning bugs…
lightning explosions of colour
brought upon by exploding fireworks…
lightning nights…
I will never forget a moment
of those magical lightning days.

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My Poem ‘Two shores, One river’

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

It all comes back to you;
it all comes back to us;
no matter how hard and how far
I throw my dream-stone
through the air and into the unknown,
the only thing that comes back is love,
and the only one who I see is you –
because to me you are my universe;
in all my life, I have never met anyone
more beautiful than you,
and no matter where I am
or what I am doing
I only want to make you happy
and to put your feelings and your heart first.

To me there is a star of Earth who shines brighter
than all the light of the universe combined;
my heart will have your name tattooed
and emblazoned on it until the day I die;
every minute of every day I have you on my mind;
to me, you are the most perfect angel
anyone anywhere has ever known,
and it is to you, and it is my love for you,
that my soul travels with,
that makes me want to break-free and fly.

Music was the highway that we traveled by
to find each-other;
our endless love is what keeps us together;
you and I have our own world that only we share,
and within it there is only the sunshine
of the most breathtaking
and the most beautiful summer weather;
every day that I have been blessed
to have you in my life
has made me happier than I have ever been –
and, to me, as long as I am with you,
and as long as we are together –
as we are going to be forever,
life could not possibly ever get better.

Our universe has no end;
our love knows no bounds;
the perfection of us
can be glimpsed and can be captured
when a picture of us smiling together is taken
and reflected back through the mirror of a camera lens;
to me, there is no image in the collective vision
and memory of existence that could ever compare
to that of you and I with one-another,
standing on a bridge connecting two shores of a river,
looking longingly at each-other,
and holding hands.

I love you, Melissa!

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My Poem ‘The Morning Person’

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

I wake up even before the sun has risen;
I am thinking about the day ahead,
while others are still dreaming;
I am there to witness a divine sight
every time I open my eyes
and I watch the sunrise,
and I feel with every beat of my heart
as it races that I am here for a reason;
I see hope in the daylight,
and in the blue sky that follows
I see a beautiful purpose
being reflected back like a mirror…
as one half of the world says “goodnight”
and the other says “good morning”.

I reveal my true colours
when I imagine and I am inspired…
I see the universe’s path for me
when something occurs to me
that I had not thought of or considered before…
I wish I could help people see
that each and every one of us
is the beholder of,
as well as in constant orbit of,
a life-giving and life-changing fire…
I wish every-thing and everyone
had the instinct to share
all the gifts that Earth blesses us with every day –
and there would be no greed, no hunger,
no richer, no poorer.

I thrive and I feel energized
by the light and the bright
of a beautiful morning;
I have stayed up through the night,
and I have been shrouded by the dark of the night
and I have walked under the silver shimmer of moonlight;
I love a night-owl dearly –
however, to me, it is not after the sun has set
that the dream-world that awaits me starts calling;
I am the one who listens to every solemn sound
that only slightly breaks the silence
of a new day’s dawn, and who looks for,
and who sees more –
however, that is just me…
I cannot help myself from being a “morning person”
who smiles at the instant that I see
the first breath-taking burst of daylight
and the golden flash
that is our sun’s magical star-light.

My Poem ‘Masterpiece’

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

To me you are a masterpiece;
I was meant for you
and you are meant for me;
when I met you
an unstoppable flood was released;
the stars aligned so that we
could come to be.

I found all that I had ever wished for
and all that I had ever desired…
when I first started to get to know you
you became the first letter and the full-stop
that began and ended every sentence and every word.

When I first met you
I knew that you were the missing piece of my heart
that I had been looking for all my life;
when I first looked into your eyes
I felt like someone divine and angelic
was staring back at me;
when I first took you in my arms
it felt like day had finally begun,
where for so long before
it had felt like an endless night;
when I first kissed your lips
time stopped completely,
and those seconds of intimacy
to me felt like an infinity.

Inspiration had been the only drug
I had ever been intoxicated by
before you came into my life
and revived my failing motivation;
I remember waiting to receive
a message back from you
with overwhelming anticipation;
for the longest time
I had only one picture of you in my mind,
and even now when I look back
on that photo of you
I see the reason for my salvation;
whenever I travel, wherever I go,
it is you who is always with me
and to you is my constant destination.

Every up, every down,
everything that has happened
had a constant silver-lining
shining behind those sometimes dark clouds…
every sunrise, every sunset,
every time I would look west,
I knew that you were there –
but I didn’t know who you were yet…
however, knowing you now
and loving you more than anything,
I know that it has always been you…
I know that we are
and we always have been meant to be…
I know that you eclipse everybody else in the world,
because you are the universe’s most beautiful…
I know, and I will always know, that you are perfect –
because to me you are a masterpiece.

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My poem ‘The Drummer’

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

It was all he heard…
it was all he felt…
it was all he wanted to do…
every morning, every night,
the drummer felt a longing,
and the beat was the only cure…
over and over again,
the drummer played the rhythm
of his favourite beat in his mind,
with the fingers of his hands,
and every time that he tapped his feet…
it was as if it was his own heart beating…
it was as if it was his own pulse racing…
it was the most epic sound
he had ever heard in his life,
since he was a baby
and he used to look out his bedroom window
and listen to the thundering sound
of the pita-patter on the window-pane
when it was raining…
it was more powerful
than any kind of hunger or craving…
to Mark, the music was like the heart-beat of God…
to Mark, the music that came from his soul
was something that was transcendental…
to Mark, the music was what kept him
from becoming among humanities lost…
to Mark, the music he heard was what he loved…
and to him it was beautiful.

Becoming a member of a marching-band
had been a dream of Mark’s since he was a child –
Mark had everything that any band
would ever want, or ever need: Mark loved music,
and he loved his favourite instrument…
even as a child Mark would turn his parents’
pots and pans into home-made drums,
and he used to play them,
and his parents let him be free
and express himself, and go wild –
and if anybody came around to visit
Mark and his parents
they would see and hear
Mark playing the most phenomenal of beats,
and every day of his life
music, especially his music,
has become more and more important.

Mark tried-out to be in his high-school band…
Mark had dreams of one day playing
in the marching-band of his favourite
college football team…
Mark played and practiced every minute
he was awake or asleep,
and he knew that it he just played
with all his heart
that everything in his life
would happen as he always dreamed it would,
as if it were all a part of a plan –
however, all Mark could play,
all Mark wanted to play,
all Mark loved to play
was the beat that he heard within…
and when his moment came
to show just how incredible a player
and a drummer he was Mark froze…
and then he did what he always did –
he played the music that he knew and loved.

Mark never made it into the marching-band…
Mark was disappointed to not be able to play
and march in front of his favourite football team –
but he wasn’t sad…
to lift his spirits, Mark’s parents ordered him
a band-uniform all of his own and they told him to
“never stop playing” the music that made him
the most happy and the music he had always known…
Mark’s parents told him to go out in his uniform,
with his drum, and “fill the world” with his music
that to them was like no other –
and that is exactly what Mark did:
he went out…
he walked down the main street
of his home town’s most busiest road…
he stopped people and traffic
to a stand-still everywhere he went…
and as he played he knew
that because of his music
he would always be remembered
as the boy, and later the man,
who would always be known as
“The Drummer”.

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My Poem ‘In memory of’

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

One of the greatest things
you can do is remember;
one of the most touching things
you can do is to not forget;
one of the things that grounds us the most
is a memory that holds us in place
so that we don’t drift away –
some memories are like anchors;
one of the things that has stood the test of time
still remains the greatest archive
that could ever be envisioned…
and that place is a world,
and that world is our beautiful planet.

The lands of every country on Earth
are speckled with the graves
and the monuments of the lost and the fallen;
every society and every religion
remembers their people in different ways;
perhaps one day the only thing
that will remain of humanity on Earth
will be which still remains
engraved on worn-out vertical tablets –
electronically? solar-powered?
Or, perhaps, on good old-fashioned
marble and stone?

Humanity has changed and continues to change;
mankind is moving forwards,
but still continues to remember
and embalm that which to them is sacred;
humanity has the means to be
at-peace the world-over,
however some cannot live
unless there is a fight to be fought
and a war to be waged;
mankind can only be blamed
for what it has done and for what it still does –
every-body has to sleep
in the bed that we all make.

In my time here on Earth,
I have learned that some things
can be put off until tomorrow –
however, the most important things,
the people who we love and who love us,
should never be side-lined,
nor ever ignored;
I have learned more than once
throughout my life that, no matter what,
each and every one of us in our lives will be hurt –
however, that which becomes a part of us
we were gifted with so that when we need it
we can draw on something as powerful as a memory
to pick us up off the floor;
as I have lived, learned,
and occasionally lost,
I have slowly understood life more –
and I understand why there needs to be a hell below
just as there needs to be a heaven above;
I, personally, hold on with all that I am
every day to my memories
that I still return to when necessary…
when I need to leave my own monument
which is always anchored to the place,
or to the person, where, or to whom,
it was created in memory of.

My Poem ‘A new leaf’

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

A new season brings new colours;
a new season brings new flowers;
a new forest brings new trees;
a new burst of sunlight
brings alive new leaves.

A summer’s day is filled with energy;
a summer evening is filled with sparkling stars;
a summer afternoon is filled with beautiful serenity;
a summer’s morning is filled with the most intense
and overwhelming explosion of natural light –
especially at the moment of sunrise
when the sun expels the dark.

Summer walks… summer music…
summer waterfalls… summer epics…
summer breeze… summer shades…
summer peace… summer feelings,
emotions and memories that will never fade.

Every season brings new things
into the mix of life on Earth;
every person is like a planet –
everything in the universe shares something
immutable from birth;
every time we think we have seen everything
something new always shows its face;
every moment is fleeting, precious,
and goes by so fast –
just ask an astronaut looking back at all of us
as they orbit high-above in space.

Just imagine if there was no time
to be bound to any longer…
just imagine if you no longer knew how old you were –
you would always be the same age
and never get any older…
just imagine if your time was yours
to do with what you may…
just imagine if there were no clocks,
no watches, no calendars…
then every life and every one
would live every day as if it were an endless day.

A new shirt…
a new adventure…
a new intake of something to quench your thirst…
a new sense of self-worth…
a new page… a new dream…
a new stage… a new new air to breath in,
heralded by the sight and the prospect
of a new leaf.