To me there is no better way to get to know someone than to talk to them... to me there is no better way to find commonalities with people than to open-up to someone... to me there is no better way to find out who each of use are than to look at the face of another who might seem as opposite and yet familiar to us as our own reflection... to me there is no better way to lose yourself than to allow yourself to fall in love. Life is a much more fulfilling experience when you choose to have a meeting of minds with people from different walks of life... life is always much more interesting when you look beyond what is familiar and you seek to see what lies over the ever-present horizon... life is much more entrancing to all of our senses when we choose to not deprive ourselves of what drives us and what inspires us... life is always more fascinating and enlightening when you give someone the time to hear what they have to say - perhaps someone who may have been waiting to tell that which has been on their mind and on the tip of their tongue for far too long. When you invite someone to join you, when you offer someone a seat, when you make a connection that might never have happened if you and another had not chosen to sit down, to talk, and to listen - what can follow as a result may continue to flow naturally and undeterred for days, for weeks, perhaps even for years to come, between you and someone else, like a constantly evolving stream.
communication
A Poem A Day #131: Communication
My Poem “Wonderful World”
Black crows flying against
a bright blue sky,
as butterflies dance in the air
seemingly joyously
as if they had just emerged
from their cocoons
and were learning how to fly,
as daisies, dandelions,
and the leaves of every tree
gently sway in the breeze.
There is the welcome sight
of many different types of life
that has been absent for some time –
including what must be
one of the busiest insects
on planet Earth:
the always buzzing,
the always working,
the vibrant and the unmistakable
black and yellow bumblebees
who are all out and about
collecting nectar and pollinating
as they hover from flower to flower.
Life is resilient…
nature has it’s own cycles…
sometimes the most defeaning
of sounds is silence…
change is often the hardest thing
for people to deal with –
especially those changes
that leave echoes and reverberations
that can last for a good long while…
nothing complicated can be rushed,
nothing simple is as uncomplicated
as it at first appears.
Sunrises, sunsets, birdsong,
language, communication
between two separate
and yet connected sources
is ever-present and ongoing,
no matter the time of the day,
the day of the month,
or the month of the year,
the past, the present, the future
of everything and everyone
is contained within our pristine
crystal ball of a planet
that is the most beautiful of them all
because of the compelling complexity
that binds every form of life
of this wonderful world.
My Poem “The Ambivert”
Everybody is a slightly different person
from one day to the next….
everybody occasionally experiences
days, minutes, moments
when they feel like they
want to be left alone
with their own thoughts,
feelings, memories, and emotions…
some people are more productive
and they excel at what they like to do
when they are left to focus
on what is right in front of them,
and there are some people who
like to work as part of a team
and explore a problem with
a collective mentality –
and then there are those who are like me:
who are neither exclusively an introvert
or an extrovert,
who like to dabble on both sides
of the line that sometimes differentiates
people and how they choose to behave
and express how they feel
as a result of what they may have heard,
what they think, or perhaps what they see.
Ambiverts, like me, enjoy living
both a life of peace, solace,
deep reflection, and occasional solitude,
as well as the experience
of getting out the house
and exploring the sometimes
challenging and chaotic places
where there is a mass of humanity
who are all more than likely
strangers to one another
but who all have so much
in common with each other –
among which being: the gift to be able
to comfortably be amongst
a metropolis of people
and not feel uneasy about
where they are, what might happen,
nor who they may interact with.
So many real world events have turned
so many extroverts into introverts
and so many introverts into extroverts –
especially those events that have had
such an impact that the effects from which
have reverberated all around the world…
there are very few people
in this modern world
who live a life removed from
the actions of others –
you would have to be a monk living out
a vow of isolation to not be influenced
by the noise of the technologically
obsessed nations of the world;
however, even someone whose life
is dedicated to a higher purpose
these days has also had to adapt
to the practice of connecting with people
in many forms of communication.
I like having my own time to think,
to remember, to write,
and to express myself through my art –
however, I do also gain
a great deal of inspiration
and insight about the world
from being around people,
from being amongst nature,
from being someone without
a specific thing to do,
and without there being a specific
place that I need to be,
at a specific time,
when I can be what comes
naturally to me: an ambivert.
My Poem “Alexa”
In this day and age,
we all have access
to knowledge and information
like never before…
at this point in time,
and at any time of the day or the night,
everybody can reach out,
touch, tap, and use their voices
to acquire the gift of a response,
the answer to a question,
the thrill of discovery and understanding…
doors that were once closed are opening,
access is finally being granted by the insightful
to those who always found it hard
being that kid at the back of the class
in school who was afraid
to raise their hand for fear of being
ridiculed for asking a “dumb question”.
Questions are important –
most of the time, in my opinion,
questions are more important than answers…
Questions, inquiries, wanderings,
looking, listening, and asking
why such a thing is the way that it is
and where something or someone came from
are the steps that need to be taken
by everyone with a curious mind
in order to stimulate and rejuvenate
wonder into their lives.
Our access to knowledge, images,
and multiple ways of communication
has never been so accessible:
we carry both the keys, the doorways,
the portals, and the windows
to the worlds within worlds
that interconnect the majority
of human life on this planet
in the form of mobile
receivers and transmitters
which we carry around with us
and we can interact with,
share a conversation with,
and inquire to,
which have become our guides
to a wealth of information,
inspiration, art, music, places,
and which have become
the artificial intelligences
that we use on a daily basis
to assist us in bringing order to our lives,
which we can even call to attention
by uttering a single word to awaken them –
such as “Siri”, “Google”,
“Cortana”, or “Alexa”.
My Poem “Talking Flowers”
Did you know that flowers can talk?
Flowers talk to bees,
bees listen to flowers –
and together both flowers and bees
commit to a mutually beneficial
relationship of pollination
in order to create the sweet nectar
which some people collect
and convert into honey
which some people sell, consume,
and take great delight in
spreading upon their toast ever morning.
New seeds are planted, more flowers grow
and bloom, and new honeybees
are drawn to the song
and the buzz that certain flowers
are born with the innate ability
to be able to sing and to speak –
and so the cycle continues,
as it has done since the first flowers
of the first garden were first grew,
because flowers and trees are like
everything that grows and is alive:
even though every living thing
is an individual in their own right
everything in this world
is just another expression
of the face of nature
and everything has their own part to play
in the plan of all things.
In general, all living things
are always listening
and they are always speaking…
flowers and plants are like people,
and in so many ways they perfected
the art of living and reproducing
themselves long before we did,
which is why it is no surprise
that flowers and plants have long been
experts on how to live, how to grow,
and how to communicate
and how to proliferate effectively
and yet seemingly silently.
My Poem “Mobile Life”
Every hour of every day
most people are either
thinking about their mobile phones,
they are looking are the screens
of their mobile phones,
they are interacting with their mobile phones,
or they are sharing and conversing
with other people far away
by using their mobile phones –
because most people are hooked,
addicted, and in need of being
connected to the web that encompasses
most of the world and gives
many people a reason to live,
a means to stay informed
about all manner of things
happening instantly and simultaneously
at any given moment.
Once upon a time, a telephone
was a stationary technological marvel
that allowed two people
to have a conversation with one another –
however, then the World Wide Web was born
and from that moment on people
started to interact in many different ways
and with people who they may never
have known existed before…
and then, when telephones became
more portable and more mobile,
the technology of communication
evolved again and people discovered
that not only could they communicate
with words and sounds they could also
communicate with photographs,
images, symbols and icons that reflect
what they are feeling emotionally.
Computers used to be huge,
room-sized, mechanical innovations
capable of completing calculations
so basic and so primitive by today’s standards –
however, in their day,
they were marveled at because
of what they could do and because
of the thought of what
they could evolve into in the future;
however, now, today, there is no line
to differentiate between what
a computer is and what a phone is
because when you take into account
what each can do there is nothing
that separates them –
computers can do what phones can do
and phones can do what computers can do,
meaning that the lines that one divided
technology, devices, and people
are now blurred into obscurity,
as are the borders and the distances
between countries and homes.
Everybody on Earth is living in a time
when every child born from now on
will never know of a time when
instant interconnectivity is not a fact of life –
and in the future most people
will most likely spend most of their time
interacting with one another
in a simulated reality that looks and feels
like the “real” world but in which
they feel more accepted and at home,
just like people do today in the way
that everything that they do
when it comes to interaction
and living their daily lives
centres around and is instantly
accessible by tapping away on the screen
of their mobile phones.
My Poem “A Matter of Time”
There is a time for everything…
there is a reason for everything…
there is an answer for everything…
there is a purpose for everything,
for everyone, for the good, for the bad,
for the black, for the white,
for the left, for the right,
and there is always a fine line
between darkness and light
where both heroes and saviors
in all their forms live and breath,
where they are able to see,
hear, feel, and understand
the reason why things are
the way that they are
and why certain things
need to be what they need to be.
No two people are the same –
and that is an amazing thing…
no two stories are the same –
however every story shares
certain commonalities with one another
that bind them spiritually to one another
through a combination of degrees of separation.
No two hearts beat at the same rhythm,
no two minds are wired in the same way,
no two dreams are coloured in the same tone –
because every person is a walking, talking,
constantly communicating spirit
and a vessel that is constantly
changing and becoming something else,
somebody else, as they progress along
the path of the life, as they emit
and emanate their own light,
and as they race against time
to give reason, purpose,
and an answer to the question
of why they were born
and how the world has been effected
by their presence in it.
Life is not random –
it only appears as if it is sometimes,
because sometimes some things seen
to appear as if from out of nowhere…
poetry is life, and life is poetry…
darkness cannot exist without light –
and that is why every time I look up
to the stars of the night-sky
I am reminded that everything and everyone
is the matter of a particular place,
purpose, perspective, universe,
and the time that they find themselves within.
Mark The Poet 