Check out my short-story “Up In Smoke”: http://wp.me/P58vDG-BC
‘Up In Smoke’
dark
My Poem ‘The devil is in the details’
When god smiles, rejoice…
when the devil smiles, run…
when angels save a life,
sing with all your voice…
when demons possess someone,
the only weapon against them
is to pray and summon
the light of heaven
to drive them back to hell
from where they are supposed to be
imprisoned, and fight the fear
of an endless night with hope
like that of sunlight.
When we think of hell
we think of flames…
when we think of heaven
we think of unwavering faith…
when we think of the devil
we think of evil…
when we think of god
we think of love.
Day and night, light and dark, good and bad –
an entire universe in-balance with itself,
that occasionally becomes imbalanced, by design;
just as every story has two sides to it,
what every story also has is a middle-ground –
a ‘grey state’ that exists
between every word of every line;
everything and everyone has a purpose –
some people have to dance with the devil
in order to get through life;
everything and everyone sometimes has to fight,
but you can rest assured that whenever you need one
there will always be an angel
in your corner and by your side.
When a single beam of light
passes through a seemingly-transparent prism of glass,
that single flash transforms
into a spectrum of many colours –
the same layers of reality
that the entire world is made up of,
from the most super-giant of stars
to the smallest particles of ash –
and when you see that rainbow
you are seeing the pigment
of everything and everyone
in the universe’s skin and eye-colour.
Questions beg for answers –
however, even fallen angels know
that some things are sometimes best left unsaid;
there would be no life
if there were not also temptation –
however, everybody has to learn a lesson
about the true meaning of life,
though some lessons
you can only learn the meaning of
before you rise and leave your body behind
to lie in peace in its last bed.
Light began everything…
darkness will always exist –
it must according to divine will…
finding an equilibrium with all things
and with all people is all about living…
just as god is in the details of everything,
so is the devil.
My Poem ‘Missing Letters’
Messages can be exchanged
in an instant;
feelings can be communicated
with a heart-beat;
some letters
that never reached
their intended recipient
and destination
could be those
of the highest importance;
gone are the days
when you would literally
have to wait weeks for a single reply –
however, I still believe
that the most powerful of contacts
that there could ever be
are those that are made
by using your feet.
First-person perspective,
face-to-face,
eye-to-eye and infinitely expressive
is always the best,
especially when it does not wholly
require the assistance of a satellite
orbiting in space –
but in this day and age,
we who are living here on Earth
are so lucky to have
all the means of technology at our fingertips.
I must admit that I too would feel bereft
if I could not speak what I am thinking,
as well as express myself
via my facial-expressions –
like the blowing
the one I love a goodnight kiss.
The written word and the printed white page
is a thing of beauty, to me –
but the power of text and the images
of a back-lit and bright screen,
I must admit, are, to me,
a draw, and to one
I am like that a moth to a flame.
I adore books and stories
written be fantastic and phenomenal writers,
but what you can see and share online
on the internet is an incredibly evocative,
vivid, and epic, world-changing domain.
I recently read a news story online
about the discovery of an amazing find:
a leather trunk from the 17th century
had been unearthed that contained
over two thousand letters –
most of the letters that have been translated
tell stories of a people
and what they were feeling and thinking
at a particularly eventful
and momentous time in their life,
while most of them thus far
still remain a mystery
as to what they say –
and I truly believe that such a discovery
is one of a treasure
that may never again come to light,
because those letters are fragments of time.
Letters can be lost, misplaced, forgotten about
sent out across the sea in a bottle –
however, messages that are sent electronically
follow you wherever you go
and are like coin thrown into a well
that never reaches the watery bottom.
Our electronic messages are like our own
digital ghosts and shadows
that we are responsible for;
our electronic images and profiles
can be seen by everyone and anyone,
24-hours a day, from the last light of dusk
to the first light of a new dawn.
There is a lot to be thankful for
about living in the times that we do;
we have discovered answers to questions
that our ancestors prayed to god
that they wished they knew;
there are things that we all do well –
but we as a species, in my opinion,
can all do better;
we may all find what we have been looking for
all our lives if we too were
to somehow miraculously discover,
or rediscover, buried over time
a treasure trove
of lost or missing letters.
My Poem ‘Time to Remember’
We remember the heroes;
we remember the villains;
we remember the what,
the where, the when, and the why;
we remember the people who tried;
we remember the people who achieved;
we remember those who fought the good fight
but who died while doing what they loved
and what they believed in;
we remember the good times,
and we remember the bad;
we remember the times
that went by too quickly,
that we remember coming to an end
as we looked over our shoulder and cried.
As the weather turns colder,
as the leaves change colour
and then fall to the ground,
as people wrap up more
and wear more layers,
as we buy fireworks and light bonfires
and we gather together
and we start to think about the well-being
of our significant others,
a spirit of good-will and humanity
sweeps over the world.
We should all be thankful for what we have;
there will always be someone
who will look at you
and want what means the most to you;
we all make new footprints
while walking again down familiar paths;
sometimes, especially at this time of the year,
things of importance come to light
that before you always wondered about
but you never knew.
Gifts of sentiment,
things that still carry a shine of memory,
the unique and the different,
the people who matter to you dearly,
seem to glow brighter
at the coldest and the darkest time of the year-
and now is the perfect time
to tell someone or to remind someone
that as long as they are in your thoughts
and as long as they are a part of your life
that they need not fear.
Gather, surround,
think, thank, be grateful, wrap,
step closer, invite,
reconnect the ties
that were once believed severed forever;
forgive, but do not forget;
make the most of the present;
save all that you can,
because these are the times
of your life to remember.
My Poem ‘Many voices inside the one’
Daylight is a flash of many colours;
day life is a mass of many choices;
just as a skyscraper
is a single building of many floors,
the light and the dark of the world
can only stay in balance with one another
if there is always a way and a forum
to speak, to sing, and to shout
with the tongue of many voices.
People learn more in the years
that they are a child
than they will ever learn
in the subsequent decades
that they are alive;
a child could literally grow up
to be anybody that they want;
someone who feels inspiration,
as well as sees inspiration,
in themselves and of themselves,
will be an inspiring bright light;
do not ever believe anyone
who tells you that lightning
cannot strike twice;
the people who truly lead the dance of life
do not always do so front the front.
A building must be built;
a person must grow;
every sword must have a hilt;
there must always be something
that you do not know;
a painting must be painted;
a movie must be written, acted,
filmed, edited, orchestrated, and directed;
music must be a conduit of many hearts;
to be funny, a joke –
no matter how many times it is told –
must always be one that makes everybody laugh.
Nobody can ever choose where,
nor to whom, they are born to –
however, if the history of humanity
can teach is anything
it is that birthplace and parentage
are the place, and they are the people,
from where our lives begin,
but they will never be,
nor should they ever be,
where or why our lives come to an end;
throughout our lives,
the voice that we talk and communicate with
changes depending on our ever-changing environment –
like the skin of a chameleon;
we are all somebody of many voices,
not just the one.
My Poem ‘The Force’
The galaxy has no boundary,
the stars of our galactic family
are bound to each other by gravity –
but the real magic energy,
that makes everything what it is, we can’t see,
because the energy field that surrounds us all
and links every atom in our body
with those of the worlds trees
is the same that can be found
within the heart of every star
ever born that has ever shined,
which is a force that makes life,
the universe, everything possible,
which we can all feel everywhere every second
that stretches in every direction infinitely.
I have believed since I was a kid
that you should always trust your feelings,
and you should always reach
as far and as high as you can,
and never give up on being
who and what you want to be –
because anyone can do so much
and can have what they need
to bring them happiness,
if for all the days of their life
they never once stop believing.
The universe, like people, has a memory
that is the best there will ever be,
and it also thinks, plans, and experiments
from time to time, and ultimately
it wants everything and everyone to live in harmony,
in serenity, and to be free to be happy,
and understand that moments of contentment
and love are precious, and every moment
will never happen the same way again –
so you must embrace the world
and its gifts of wonderful
and phenomenal improbability.
Some of the best things
that have ever happened in your life,
perhaps even your birth,
were not planned –
but their effect will be long-remembered,
as long as the Earth is a beautiful blue light
in the dark for outer-space observers
and a paradise for those of us
who are blessed to walk its lands
and sail and swim its waters.
Nature is all about maintaining a vital balance
between the light and the dark,
between choice and fate,
between the river and the source,
and every time I feel something
that I know is special and powerful
I throw everything of myself around it
and I make it a part of me
and I feel like a sword of light
perfectly in balance with understanding
and with intense feeling
of the great and eternal
not to be underestimated
power of the force of life.
My Poem ‘Turned Around’
While in the woods,
I got lost, I got turned around, and I lost my way;
while in the woods,
my path disappeared like pavement drawings
after a shower of rain;
while in the woods,
the wind blew through the trees;
while in the woods, time froze;
while in the woods,
there wasn’t a definitive direction for me to see;
while in the woods,
I found myself somewhere I did not know.
While in the woods, I heard distant noises;
while in the woods, my own potent survival instincts
focused every and all of my choices;
while in the woods, I walked past a tree
that looked as if it had been burned from the inside out,
as if it has been struck by lightning;
while in the woods, as I walked further,
I knew that the day was getting later,
because of the darkening of the day-lighting.
While in the woods, with every step that I took,
the colour of the leaves on the ground got darker and darker,
and after a time it looked as if I were walking on, and in, space,
because everything was black;
while in the woods, there were no signposts,
or anything that I or anyone could use as a marker,
and as my perception of time disappeared,
it did cross my mind for an instant
that I may never make it back.
While in the woods, the moon was the only source of illumination,
and even though it was an aid to me,
it still could not tell me where I should go;
while in the woods, you hear things rustling all around you,
but because there is hardly any light to see by,
knowing what might only be inches away from you
is something that you turn over in your imagination;
while in the woods, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck
stand on-end, and you wonder if, at some point,
you may not notice an obstacle right in front of you,
that might trip you up and send you head over toe;
while in the woods, you feel like you could walk for hours,
because your body and your mind
know that they should not be here after dark,
and all feelings of hunger or exhaustion
become distant memories and do not cross your mind for a second,
and as soon as you lose any semblance of sight,
all of your other senses unbelievably and radically become heightened.
While in the woods, you feel more deeply,
and your thoughts become louder;
while in the woods, and alone, your inner-voice becomes audible,
as you start talking to yourself,
and even the breaking of the tinniest of twigs
sounds like the roar of a crashing boulder.
While in the woods, you forget why you are in the woods,
and you ask yourself questions
that you might never have thought to ask at any other time before,
and may never ask those same questions again afterwards in the future,
but at the time you are asking them they are incredibly profound.
While in the woods,
you eventually find yourself in the very spot where you entered,
which may seem like a life-time ago,
however in reality you may discover that the time
is not what you think it is,
and the person that is you is not the one of the same mind,
and no longer focused on the same things,
as the you who walked into the woods,
and who somehow got turned around.
My Poem ‘Ghost on my bed’
When I was a child,
around the age of eight or nine,
I was sleeping in bed,
when I suddenly woke up in the dark-
I’m not sure what time it was,
but it was definitely after midnight-
and the lasting memory
that has stayed with me every day since
is that of me turning over in my bed
to look down at the light
coming from underneath my bedroom door,
and even though it was seemingly warm in my bed,
the air around me had gone incredibly cold-
as if I were sleeping in a bedroom
that was also a fridge;
and I also remember, from out of nowhere,
the feeling that I was being watched,
and that I was not alone.
I must have been lying there
for what must have been only a few seconds,
when I turned my head to look away from the light
towards the dark of my bedroom wall,
when I suddenly felt the mattress I was sleeping on
sink, as if someone was sitting on my bed besides me,
and I could feel their weight,
and their touch on the back of my neck.
It was definitely not the wind,
it was definitely not my imagination;
it was definitely someone, or something;
it was definitely a presence, a spirit,
a phantom, an apparition,
that felt real and was real-
it was a life that was still living in some form,
who had come to pay me a visit.
I did not make a sound;
I did not cry;
I did not look around;
I did feel frightened and unsettled, I am not going to lie;
I just lay there; I just listened;
I just closed my eyes and wondered whether
when I woke up in the morning
whomever was now sitting on my bed would still be there;
I just remember drifting away,
until I saw the light of my dreams glisten.
I woke up in the morning,
still with the memory of the night before
alive and burning in my mind.
I opened the curtains to let the new day’s sunlight in,
and I looked around, and I sighed.
To this day, I do not know what, or who,
came to me on that night a long time ago;
I do not know if they were once alive and they knew me,
or someone I know who is not yet dead;
I do not know who was there in the gloom of my room,
but I do know that one night when I was a boy
there was a ghost who sat on my bed.
markthepoet.me 