dreamer
A Poem A Day #297: Dreams
A Poem A Day #3: Forever Dreamer
My Poem “Getting Ahead of Myself”
As a child, I always looked to the future…
as a child, when I imagined what would be,
I was always sure that things would turn out
like they were predicted to
in films and in television shows
that I watched which depicted
a world to come when anything
and everything was possible:
including vacations on the Moon,
underwater cities, and, of course, time-travel.
As a child, I was always hopeful
of a bright and inspirational tomorrow –
because looking immediately
for the positive of any situation
for me has always been in my nature…
as a child, I was like Luke Skywalker,
in the Star Wars movies:
always looking to the horizon
and always believing that anybody –
even someone as seemingly
bad as Darth Vader could be
redeemed and returned
from the dark side to the light.
As a child, fantasy worlds
drew me to them, because
what I saw and who I saw
had this magic to them
that had aspects to them
that were incredibly enthralling –
including: quests, adventures,
and other realities that seemed
wonderfully exciting.
As a child, real life was somewhere
where I interacted with my family,
where I hung out with my friends,
where I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
and where there wasn’t such things
as flying cars, teleporters,
jet-packs, and robots who
looked as human as anybody I knew –
but I knew that one day all those
things that the television showed me
would come true one day.
As an adult, when I look around
at the world of the present –
while simultaneously reflecting
back upon the past and at what I used
to believe would be a reality
when I was all grown-up –
there are times when I genuinely
have to ask myself,
in the words of Freddie Mercury:
“Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy?”
As I have grown older
and as I have seen and experienced
even more of the world,
my instant impulse to imagine
possibilities before they happen
is still my immediate instinct –
and though there have indeed
been times in my life when my belief
that the world is innately hopeful
and optimistic has been tested,
I will never be convinced by
anything or by anybody
to stop reaching for that which
seemingly lies upon a higher shelf of life,
and I will never stop being someone
who naturally and occasionally
gets ahead of himself.
My Poem “Synchronicity”
Hope for the best…
be the best at what you do…
look for the best in everything…
make the best of what comes to you.
Every day is a test…
every day is a puzzle…
every day is both simple and complex…
every day is one of an infinite number
in the age of the universe –
and yet every day is special in some way,
shape, or form, because every day is not
the same as any other…
every day is as precious
and as ephemeral and as transient
as a dream or a bubble.
In this life, you have to be prepared
for the unexpected – but, at the same time,
be flexible and mindful that whatever plans
you make may need some slight adjustments
along the way in order to make them
come to fruition…
in this life, you sometimes have to use
your intuition about something
in order to give you the much needed
motivation to not be disheartened
by the negative voices
that are sometimes directed
in your direction.
Being a dreamer does not mean
that you live in a fantasy –
every idea that ever became
a reality was once the dream
and the wish of someone with a vision
of a world that they could one day
influence and leave their mark upon.
Being human means that you sometimes
have to see the end before the beginning,
you have to leap before you look,
you have to let your mind wander
and let your thoughts influence your actions,
you have to fall on your face,
get back up, and never stop
believing in the good that can come
from following and using your inner
search engine of inspiration –
filled with a life-time of moments,
images, sounds, and feelings –
that is your life and has the power
to influence the course of your life
far into the future and give you
the answer, the truth, the path,
the direction that will one day
synchronize and symbolize
every moment of your life.
My Poem “Touched”
I am no one special,
I am but a poet, a writer, a dreamer,
an optimist, a hopeful romantic –
however, there have been times in my life
when I have felt truly touched and honored
that something that I wrote or created
touched someone else
so much so that they wanted
to share that which I expressed from my mind,
from my heart, and from my soul,
at a fundamental moment in their lives
because it meant something to them:
a friend of mine once asked me if they could
have a poem that I wrote read
at their wedding ceremony,
I was once asked to write a poem
that would ultimately inspire the creation
of a brand new song,
and just recently a poem that I wrote
and I recorded myself reciting 10 years prior
was incorporated into a song
that I must admit to listening to all the time…
I am no one special –
I never have been someone who
has ever had a natural talent
to sing about from the rooftops –
but I have always had a way with words,
I have always had a love of language,
and I have always believed that words
should flow when they are read
and they should enter a person’s consciousness
in the same way that music does…
I am no one special –
I have been told that
I used to be a bit of narcissist
when I was younger –
however, these days, I do not
pat myself on the back as much as I used to,
and even though I believe that
I have learned a lot as I have lived,
I still think that there is
so much more to life that I have to learn…
I am no one special, I am no angel –
however, I just hope that people will
remember me long after my body has turned to dust…
I am no one special, I have made mistakes –
but I must admit that no matter
what happens to me, and where I end up,
I can honestly say that I really did
try my best throughout my life
to be the best person that I could be,
and I will always be eternally grateful
to everybody who has given me the gift
of touch and who has enabled me to be
someone who has made a difference
by making people feel
as if they have been touched.
My Poem “The Old Mark”
There is a man looking at me
before my eyes…
there is a man looking at me
who I do not recognize…
there is a man looking at me
who has my memories…
there is a man looking back at me
as I look at them who has been
growing within me for years…
there is a man who has lived
every day with me, and I realize
now that we are eye to eye who they are…
there is a man who is as close
as can be to me
who used to be nothing more
than a shadowy figure on the horizon…
there is a man who looks like a man,
but who also seems so alien to me
that for all I know
he could have come from Mars…
there is a man who was once young
and unscarred by life, by people, and by himself,
but who is who I see now in X-ray
and for all his faults…
I see myself as I once was, and as I am now –
one and the same, a man of light and a man of dark…
I see the young dreamer,
and the old Mark.
My Poem ‘Somnabulists’
Sometimes when we fall asleep,
as we cross the threshold into dreams,
we instantly wake up…
most of the time,
when we recall what ran through our mind
over the course of the night before
we remember the middle and the end of a dream,
but not the start…
some people live out their hopes
and some people live out their fears
when they walk the streets
of the world of forty-winks…
for some people dreaming of another place
and another time is a welcome escape…
some dreams dreamed are a nightmare
from beginning to end,
while others you want to continue having
for the rest of your life
because they are filled
with so much that you love…
dreamers draw on so much when they dream –
from their life, from their soul,
from their senses, from the joys, and from the sadness
that everybody has within their heart…
learning how to dream
and learning how to live
and breath within a dream
is harder to achieve than some might think…
when we dream, we submit…
when we dream, we let go…
when we dream we all become
a part of the universes oldest myth…
when we dream we give up our control
over our own mind and our own
imagination-engine and we allow
our thoughts and our secrets
to merge into one and just flow –
like a waterfall, like a river,
adding to the infinite depth that has no end,
that often spills out into the waking-world
and is sometimes caught by a camera-lens…
everybody dreams differently, at different times,
and sometimes in different colours…
everybody sees the physical world
and the dream-world from a different perspective,
and their dreams reflect that…
every animal, every bird,
every angel, every man, woman, boy, and girl,
learn vital lessons and they confront
internal manifestations
of real-world obstacles and desires –
and that is at the centre
of dreaming and dreams,
and it is what gives dreams their power…
our dreams are our place
to filter through our thoughts and our memories,
and sometimes the steps that we take
within a dream our physical body
re-enacts in the real-world –
and when that happens,
in both dreams and in life,
we all become sleepwalkers.
My Poem ‘The God of Sleep’
It’s a shame that I can’t write
while I am dreaming,
just as I dream while I am writing –
because I know that what I imagine at night
would eclipse, and does, any and all
that I put into words in the sunshine
of the day-light…
fragments of my thoughts of the night before
remain in the morning, sometimes,
like the wreckage of a ship
that has run-aground on a beach –
but they are only pieces of a whole
and there are holes now
where unrecoverable dream-moments
used to appear so clear and so real,
but which are now lost
on an ocean of wonder and wishes
being carried out of reach.
Sometimes we have the same dream
over-and-over again,
and each time we imagine them
we remember more about them when we wake up;
why we all dream is still a question
that nobody can give a distinctive
and a correct answer to –
however, I believe the question of why we dream
is on-par with the question:
why do we fall in love?
We love because we must;
we dream because we are unable to stem the tides
of our imagination and our emotional flood;
we wade deep into a dream
when we are doing something in it
that means something to us;
when we dream we are hearing
and we are being pulled-under a spell,
after having been sprinkled by Morpheus’ dream-dust.
I often wonder what I do not remember
about the times that have now returned
to the ether of infinite time, depth, and colour;
like some people who remember their dreams,
I too wonder what they mean;
I often wonder what would happen
if all of our dreams and their content
were to become real and we could share
every detail of our dreams with one-another;
I have always believed that our dreams
are our doorways to a greater world –
a world that knows no bounds
and has no fixed borders,
and I believe that each time we dream,
when and where night and day meet,
we are being given a gift to hold-on to
and do with it what we will
by ‘Hypnos’ himself, the god of sleep.
markthepoet.me 