You can learn something new every day... you may know how to do something backwards and forwards, but there are times when we can all be surprised, even by something familiar, in a new and an unexpected way... whether you are young or old life and people can, do, and will always find a way to surprise you - like a twist that often happens within the story of a book, or a movie, that makes you reconsider all that you thought you knew about why and what the storyteller, or the director, wanted to convey or display. Sometimes after we unearth something that had been buried, or after we believe we have discovered everything about what makes something work, someone will look at something and find evidence that makes the world take a second look at what they thought was the truth of something, or someone, and present a different version of what is, and what was, and in an instant can rewrite the history book version and paint a brand new picture that will define perceptions and conceptions for generations to come. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, no one has invented a time machine that can be used to go back and corroborate the physical appearance of legendary and infamous figures from the past - such as William Shakespeare, Jesus, Leonardo DaVinci, Julius Ceasar, or Tutankhamen - but we do have representations of them in the form of paintings, sculptures, and a gold sycophagi; but who knows whether there are visitors from the far future walking the streets of the 21st Century that are able to blend in so well that they can pass us by without us batting an eye. There are things that we will never know about what a place was really like way back when; there are things that we will never know about what certain people were really like who are famous now but who were once the child of a mother and a father; there are things that we will never know about what it must have been like to see, to hear, to feel life on Earth be remade over and over again over the centuries; there are things that we are only now discovering - for example: did you know that some dinosaurs had feathers?
discovery
A Poem A Day #39: Rediscovery
My Poem “Substantial sustenance”
It’s always great to experience new things…
it’s always great to see things
you have never seen before…
it’s always refreshing to go somewhere
you have always wanted to go
but have never been before…
it’s always enlightening to be exposed
to the sights, the sounds, the people,
and the unique identity of a community
all living and breathing
every aspect of their particular
village, town, region, or city.
It has always been a passion of mine
to seek out, to explore, to experience,
and to learn more about the many
different and diverse voices, accents,
faces, beliefs, and opinions
that make humanity the distinct species
of dreamers, storytellers,
and builders that we are…
when people go somewhere that
is renowned for representing
and practicing certain customs
and for communicating
in certain ways of speech
that cannot be witnessed nor heard
anywhere else in the world,
you can find yourself initially
overwhelmed and uninformed –
however, like with most things,
the more that you are exposed to
certain things, and to certain practices,
the more likely it is that you will
naturally accept what you are surrounded by
and over time you will naturally
assimilate certain things into
your unconscious daily routines.
Being a wanderer can be exciting…
being someone who is constantly
looking for inspiration and stimulation
can be encompassing and thrilling…
being someone who wonders
why things are the way that they are
can be revealing…
being someone who ventures
beyond their understanding of what
life is all about is to be someone
who accepts the mission of exploration
and discovery that might take them
to places that are both illuminating
in terms of knowledge and fulfilling
in terms of inspiration
that cannot be underestimated
and are an essential and a substantial
source of sustenance
for the mind, for the body,
and for the soul of who you are.
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 “Artistic Heroes”
I am definitely no John Lennon,
Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Bob Dylan,
Michelangelo, or Vincent van Gogh –
however, they are some of the poets
of music, words, colours,
prolific and deep expression
who are among the members
of some of my artistic heroes.
I am no Shakespeare,
Stephen King, or Neil Gaiman –
however, I am also an author
and a writer who wants to
inspire, to enlighten, to entertain,
and to take the readers of my poetry,
my stories, and the characters
who I have written about
and described, on a journey
that they will never forget
which is unquestionably
a pure creation of my own
varied and constantly
curious wandering imagination.
I am no Albert Einstein,
Stephen Hawking, or Elon Musk –
however, I too think about things
and I wonder why things are the way
that they are and if there are
answers to the questions
that many people daily ask,
like: What is the true nature of life?
Is time-travel possible?
Who or what created
the universe, and why?
Will people one day be living,
breathing, existing, and communicating
every day of their life solely
within the illusion of a simulation?
At my heart, I am a dreamer…
at my best, I am an optimist…
at my most inspired,
I am a man without regret,
without reservation,
without any kind of fear of the unknown,
nor without any worry that
I will one day lose my life-long
obsession with discovering
as much knowledge and inspiration
from the depths and the frontiers
of this limitless universe as I possibly can –
and one day I hope that I will get to meet
all of my artistic heroes in one place
and swop stories with them
about the road that they all took
to get them from where their story began
to the place where they were inspiring
the dreams of many and colouring
the consciousness of the world’s
imagination.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
– Albert Einstein
My Poem “Everything that will ever be”
When I was a child
I had a poster on my bedroom wall
of the planets of the solar system –
our local galactic neighbourhood
which consists of some rocky, some icy,
some gaseous, some barren, some hostile,
spheres, worlds of every kind,
of every size, of every colour,
of every temperature –
and that was what first introduced me
to celestial names like “Mercury”, “Mars”,
“Saturn”, “Jupiter”,
and the ring of all manner
of rock and ice that lies
and encircles us on the outer-fringes
of our backyard of space,
that is barely effected by the gravity
of the sun at the centre of our solar-system,
called “The Kuiper Belt”:
names that I had never heard before,
but which have since not left
the vocabulary of my imagination.
Space… the unknown…
the discovery of all
the wonders of the galaxy, the universe,
has always been a draw for me…
when I was a child I used to watch
fictional space adventures on television –
within the episodes of “Star Trek”
and in science-fiction movies
such as “Star Wars” –
that fueled my dreams
and compelled my mind
into thinking about the possibilities
that hopefully await humanity in the future,
what we will achieve,
and the reaches of interstellar space
that we will explore at some time
in the near to distant future.
There has always been something
about the sight of the stars,
when each and every
one us look above at the night-sky,
that resonates with something
inside of us – something profound
that speaks to something
within every strand of our human DNA,
our consciousness,
our heart, our soul –
and which captures us
and takes us away
with the gravity waves that
that drive the giant leaps
of art, science, humanity,
and every once in a while
secrets and truths seep into
the mind of someone who seeks
to know the meaning of life –
such as the answer to the question
of how/whether the universe began
and if it will one have an end –
and inspire people of all ages
to never stop searching, digging,
and uncovering the vast
multilayered, multifaceted,
multidimensional universe
of infinity that we are a part of:
the multicolored garden
of experimentation and evolution
that is everything that has ever been
and everything that will ever be.
My Poem “Personal Heaven”
Heaven is a moment of time…
Heaven is a person of love and light…
Heaven is a song of truth that
touches your heart as well as your mind…
Heaven is a source of passion and inspiration
that artists constantly mine…
Heaven is a cloud of thoughts,
impulses, memories, and observations
that combine to make an internal
ocean of infinite depths
to which anybody can dive.
Heaven can be found within the soul of a person…
Heaven can be found in the way
that a someone makes you feel…
Heaven is whatever someone considers
to be breathtaking, magical,
wonderful, and beautiful.
Heaven is often not just
what someone can feel
but what in truth cannot be touched
or put into words…
Heaven is the world within you
that you discover over the course of your life
which stays with you and which unfolds
before you when you fall off
the precipice of this life
and you start living the life
within the world of your own personal heaven.
My Poem “The Dance that never ends”
It feels like a long time
since I was allowed to stop,
to sit, to look, to listen,
to read, to write, to take in the voices,
the songs, the sounds, the music of life
like I used to –
there is always something else to do,
there is always somewhere else to be,
there is always some staple of necessity
that always seems to get in my way
of being the dreamer I love to be
and gladly welcoming any and every
opportunity to engage in a wandering
of inspiration and discovery…
it feels like it has been a long time
since I took a walk through a woodland,
left my footprints in the wet sand of a beach,
or watched the sun rise while listening
to the many birds singing
in the bushes and in the trees
in chorus with one another at dawn –
it is moments like this, when my time is my own,
when I feel like a soldier that has just returned home
from a theater of war…
it feels like only yesterday that I felt
the world stop spinning,
when Melissa and I shared our first kiss
and it feels like only yesterday
that I saw her for the first time
and I fell madly in love
with every perfect inch of her beautiful face…
it feels like only yesterday
that I tossed my silver coin into that wishing-well
and I made my silent wish…
it feels like today is yesterday all over again
when my memories of quintessential moments of happiness
return to the surface of my consciousness,
that are so powerful that they can fool me
into thinking that they are happening right now,
and it is times that happened years ago
that even to this day still feel vivid and tangible,
that I live to remember, to return to,
and to feel as if they are happening
over and over again like a dance that never ends.
My Poem “Some Gifts”
Some gifts we are born with…
some gifts we slowly find
as we look, listen, think, breathe,
and as we feel the song of the world
synchronize with our heart beats…
some gifts come to us in our dreams…
some gifts are such a part of us
that every day is a journey of discovery
to discover what our gifts mean…
some gifts leave us for a short time
before rising to the surface again
to take a breath and to take a look around
so that they can restart their fire of desire
like a phoenix’s flaming tail that never stops burning…
some gifts just need time to go to new places
in order for them to express themselves like never before.
Every gift has the power to renew itself –
as long as there is solid ground beneath them
to take off from and a sky of infinite possibilities
above them to keep the constellations of stars turning…
all gifts are doorways, however some gifts
are able to create things that nobody has ever experienced,
heard, felt, nor seen before.
Some days ideas come like a trickle of interconnected thoughts
and some days some gifts manifest themselves
like a tidal wave of inspiration,
or like a storm that ultimately reaches its climax
when ideas rise and fall
like the raindrops of a downpour.
markthepoet.me 