creation
My Poem “Pandora”
Being a poet, being an artist,
being a writer, being an author,
being a creator is like being
the personification of Pandora –
who in Greek mythology was the first woman,
created out of the Earth by order of Zeus,
whose name means “all gifts”,
and who was gifted a container
which she was instructed not to open
but which she one day
did indeed lift the lid of
and in doing so allowed all the “evils”
within to be released and spread across
the Earth, but was able to close the lid
quick enough to contain the blessing of hope.
When an artist creates something
they are bringing to life a gift
that is a mixture of all that they may have
experienced throughout their life,
while still retaining within them
a feeling of hope and optimism that what
they have to say and to express
will one day find the intended target
that their art was meant for.
Everybody on Earth occasionally
has this insatiable instinct to open
a box or a container that has within it
that which they do not understand,
but that which they must see
with their own eyes to satisfy
their need to know all that can be known,
just like the ever curious Pandora.
My Poem “Rabbit Holes”
I think everybody can attest
to the experience of
once in a while watching something,
reading something, hearing something,
and then finding themselves
inextricably falling head first
down a “rabbit hole” of interest
and intrigue in regard
to something in particular –
a subject, a song, an artist,
a film, a TV show, an idea
that slowly captures your imagination
and compels you to dive deeper
below the surface and discover
what lies beneath what something
appears to be, and find the structure
that binds everything together
to make something everything that is:
experiences, words of wisdom,
influences, impressions, interpretations,
vital pieces of the creator
that will forever remain infused
into what coalesces into
making a piece of art.
The internet is a place
full of “rabbit holes” –
one moment you can be watching
an interview with somebody
whom you want to know more about,
and the next you can be
automatically recommended
to watch another video
involving someone or something
with a unique and vital insight
into a subject matter that has
a close association to the video
that you original sought out –
and it is the ever present
links that are there to be found
that make the internet the warren
of tunnels for acquiring
and dispensing knowledge,
insight, entertainment, and connection
that makes it a wonder of the modern world.
“Rabbit holes” leading to new,
wonderful, fascinating, and vastly
different worlds, of course,
is a metaphorical allusion
to the rabbit hole that Alice,
in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”,
deliberately climbs into –
which of course was in fact
an unsuspecting entrance to
the magical world of “Wonderland”,
while following “The White Rabbit” –
has been the inspiration for many
fantastic tales in every form –
from literature to cinema;
and every day everybody carries with them
at all times portals that enable
anybody with access to the World Wide Web
of content that is the Internet
the ability to find themselves
drawn down metaphorical “Rabbit hole”
after “Rabbit hole” that while using
to expand their knowledge
and their horizons they are
all unknowingly also contributing
into the creation of what the wonderland
of the future will look like.
My Poem “The Art of The Act”
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.
My Poem “Ideas don’t die”
You can bury ideas,
you can file them away for a rainy day,
you can hide ideas –
but one day those same ideas
will return to haunt you,
to keep you up at night,
and continue to make you think…
Ideas come from places, from things,
and from people – sometimes randomly…
Ideas are like sharks –
and sometimes they are just too big,
too fast, and too strong, to get away from,
because they are so imposing
and so overpowering…
Life itself is an idea,
and many people have different
and varying ideas and opinions
on how people should choose to live their lives…
Art is mostly a nexus of many ideas
coming together to form a unified idea
that surpasses and eclipses
all the others that made it…
The creation of ideas is like
engaging in an act of reproduction –
and just like every spawn or offspring,
a song, a piece of music, a story, a poem,
has an idea running through it
that binds every note, every word,
every picture of imagery,
like a strand of DNA…
Ideas make “something” out of “nothing” –
but “nothing” in my experience
is ever truly “nothing”,
because everything does mean something…
Perception is everything…
Ideas are born from experience,
and by seeing, listening, and feeling
something that creates a connection…
Ideas are the greatest and the most powerful
source of fuel for any creative person –
however, even if do not deliberately make art,
I believe that certain ideas have a way
of changing someone in such a way
that they are never the same
after they have come into contact with them –
because, for some reason, some ideas just won’t die.
Listen to My Poem “Ideas don’t die” by Mark The Poet on #SoundCloud
My Poem “Deus ex Poetica”
Wishes and prayers come from hope…
inspiration rises when a feeling is set free…
memories and emotions are like ghosts…
poetry comes from God, and God comes from poetry.
Nobody has ever asked God why they created the universe –
but nobody should ever ask an artist
why they create the art that they make,
because, most of the time, an artist
is only following their instincts
and trying to capture a feeling, an experience,
or an emotion that they want to share.
An artist can spend years living in darkness –
and then, light, life, an idea,
an entire universe can instantly come into being
and start a chain-reaction that expands without end
before their eyes, and build a reality
of its own, layer by layer.
There is always someone listening…
there is always someone watching…
there is always someone thinking,
dreaming, and imagining something new…
there is always someone waiting…
there is always someone anticipating…
there is always someone creating
magic from out of the blue.
Everything is what it is for a reason…
everybody is who they are because who they are
is who they are meant to be…
everyone who is anyone has at least once in their life
opened their heart, closed their eyes,
dug down deep within themselves, touched their own soul,
and returned to the world with something about themselves
that they never knew they possessed.
When an artist first becomes an artist,
what they feel, what they see,
and what they know drives their emotions
and their imagination, can sometimes be scary –
however, the more that an artist creates,
the more that they want to create…
artists are constantly driving to inspire
a feeling in someone else because of the echo
of a feeling of that which inspired them –
comedians receive such a feverish reaction
to their art when they inspire
an audience of people into laughter.
God has always been
the greatest artist anyone has ever known…
since the beginning – when they created
the heavens and the Earth –
every day God’s greatest creation – Life –
continues to evolve and be reinterpreted
over and over again, and it will continue to be –
because Life will always be the greatest masterpiece
ever envisioned or created, just as it has been
since the beginning of time
when God created poetry.
My Poem ‘Torchbearer’
I don’t know where it came from…
I don’t know where it began…
I don’t know if it was passed on
to me by my Mum or my Dad –
but I know that I am
the beholder of a fire,
a spark, a light, an energy,
that brought about the creation
of the universe and life-itself…
I feel it constantly burning in my chest…
I see it every night when it illuminates my dreams…
I hear it every morning when I wake up in bed…
I know what it is and I know what it means.
I have known of this internal fire for a while…
I have been driven by this incredible torch
since I saw its rise…
I have tried to describe it
and write poetry about it before,
and every time I do just knowing
that it still burns bright and wild within me
always makes me smile.
I am sure that more than one person
in my life has seen my light
sparkling in the blue and the sometimes green
irises of my eyes –
I see it too when I look in a mirror,
and I know that no matter what happens to me
and where I may end my days
that the light of me
will touch and inspire another
and another and another,
and when humanity finally makes itself
another home on another planet
orbiting another star
that same flame will help fulfill
the destiny of a countless number of people
in an infinite number of ways.
It is a comfort to me
to believe and to know
that I will never truly die…
it is hard to put into words
something that I know instinctively is a part of me,
but also a part of a continuum
that transcends both space and time…
it is why I was born…
it is why I am here…
it is why when I look up at the sky
I believe that I can fly…
and I am not the only one
here on Earth blessed with a gift
to be a beacon of the universe’s divine light –
we are everywhere…
and I never take the fire of my birthright for granted,
and I am honored to be one
of a universe full of torchbearers.
My Poem ‘The Burning Man’
What symbolizes life more than a candle?
What symbolizes a person’s soul more than a flame?
What symbolizes that which is precious
but that which is also hard to handle?
What symbolizes that which no one,
no matter how powerful they are, can tame?
Fire. Burning. Creation, and destruction.
The end, as well as the beginning of something new.
Just as a fire will continue to rage
as long as it has fuel –
an artist… a reveler… a person inspired
and who embraces life’s limitless opportunities
to express themselves see powerful images,
like that of a “burning man” –
as if they are also gasoline
to the spark that resides
within their mind and in their heart;
just like a band of many, performing as-one,
a harmony and a synchronicity of destiny
binds everybody together –
so much so that they create
their own gravitational-pull.
In the heat of a desert…
in the dry air of a forest…
in the most desperately-remote places on Earth…
within the beat of a person’s heart
crescendoing in their chest…
sometimes a seemingly-spontaneous wildfire
can spark into life…
sometimes amazing things can happen
when the conditions are “just-right”…
sometimes the gift and the act of free-will
can give rise to an instinctive
visceral expression of natural art.
Life is a shared-experience…
some people’s life, light, flame, and fire,
burns brighter and for longer –
but everybody who lives any life at-all
burns with a purpose…
everybody is a stranger to each-other
until they introduce themselves to one-another…
everybody is on a mission of self-discovery –
but the most important thing
to look back upon your life
and be proud of is all the times
when you walked together with someone
in mutual-participation and cooperation,
guided by a feeling and without a firm-plan;
there have been many examples throughout human history
of what happens when you bring together
people and nature and you let them be
and you let them burn and commune
for a short time with one-another,
and there is no better festival of life
that takes place every year
that is a symbol of the constant burning spirit
of a person’s spirit more so than ‘Burning Man’.
My Poem ‘Music-verse’
Before the download,
before the CD,
before the cassette tape,
before the vinyl;
before we were telling
the time of the day by sundial;
before the flute, before the drum;
before anyone ever had any thought
to what music of any kind was,
the music of nature has been playing on repeat –
lyrics, melodies, fast, slow,
deep, epic, uplifting, inspiring,
mystifying, electrifying,
amazing, permeating beats.
Before the first sunrise,
before the first drop of rain,
before the first primordial noise,
before the first feeling of pain,
before the first rumble of thunder,
before the first flash of lightning,
before the first father and mother,
there has been a song being sung
that the universe and all life within
will never stop singing.
The universe itself
and every star of every galaxy
are notes and vibrations
and echoes of light
of a vast and endless symphony;
the universe is like a turntable
and it is always spinning –
however, no matter how fast it is moving
and how fast life is rising and dying,
we all go with the revolution
of the cycle of life,
and we do not ever stop to think
that we should be in any way dizzy.
Humanity has known
that it has been making its own music
from the second that the first man and woman
put their hands up to each others chests
and felt each others hearts beating
and drumming like an earthquake;
humanity has been hearing music
ever since they heard
the first distant roar of a wild animal;
life has been sending out waves
since the creation of the universe,
and Earth is one world of many
where things happen every second
that we would call miracles;
dreams, art, birth, creation,
death by supernova –
the microscopic and the macroscopic events
that have shaped everything,
and which continue to reshape
the observable and the unseen universe,
is the music of all life
of our music-verse.
My Poem ‘The Night Club’
It always been amazing to me
how a song or a piece of music
can make you and can teach you
how to move to it
within seconds of first hearing it;
it has always been inspiring to me
how a memorable character in a story
can have the unknown power
to come into the physical world
and walk around in it;
it has always been fascinating to me
why some people, no matter how soundly
they may be sleeping
wake up early in the morning,
and, just like me, begin creating;
it has always been gratifying to me
to see people sharing what they can
and keeping alive the memory
of a phenomenal feeling.
I have always been a quick study;
I have always been fast on my feet,
as well as fast in thought
and luminous and strong in spirit;
I have always known that
there are multiple levels to a story;
I have always felt just as comfortable,
alive, and sensitive to what surrounds me
in the beautiful light of a sunny day,
as I do walking in the dark
in the moonlight of night.
Everyone is a catalyst;
every day is a new day
that has echoes of the days before
as well as foreshadowing of the days that will follow;
every time you do anything
you are taking a risk;
every eventuality can evolve
from fantasy to reality at any moment
anywhere you go.
When you unexpectedly wake up,
you are being awoken for a reason;
when you randomly find something
that has been left by somebody,
that thing was left purposefully
so that you could find it
and so that it could influence
your life in some way;
when you see something, feel something,
and something within you is changed;
when you know that you are forever in love;
when you know your place,
when you know your time,
when you find yourself awake
and energized like never before –
reading, writing, watching, walking,
listening, loving every moment,
even if that place and time
is midday in the afternoon
or 1 o’clock in the morning –
and you discover that you are a member
and a reveler like so many other people
who are in their element being a star
in the constellation of a night club.
markthepoet.me 