Everybody wants to live in hope when they are awake... everybody wants to dream of infinite possibilities when they asleep... everybody sees things that for some reason they instantly take to their heart and love... everybody - whether they remember or not - experiences internal moments of freedom during which they may have imagined that they had the gift to be able to fly, or perhaps talk to someone living or dead - someone who they may know, or someone who they may have always wanted to meet. Everybody is sometimes their own worst critic... everybody, most of the time, wants themselves to be a winner... everybody has something that they are meant to receive and to give... everyday everybody comes up with multiple ideas, but to be able self-actualize an idea and see it jump from someone's mind onto a page, and then perhaps become tangible and seemingly "more real", sometimes creators need to risk a part of themselves if they truly want to see their dreams delivered. Everybody will succeed, and everybody will fail... everybody will find themselves throughout their life in need of something or someone, and everybody will sometimes find themselves inextricably walking in circles and figuratively chasing their own tails... everybody has to eat... everybody has to drink... everybody has to breathe... everybody has to sleep... everybody sometimes has to be the chaser and everybody sometimes has to be the chased... everybody sometimes has to be the embracer and sometimes everybody needs to be the embraced.
embrace
My Poem “Catharsis”
Whatever you internalize,
whatever you take in,
whatever you analyze,
whatever you hear,
whatever you taste,
whatever you touch,
whatever you see –
especially if it is something
that challenges you in some way –
at some point, ultimately,
has to be released and set free…
that is why art – poetry, painting,
drawing, movies, television, books,
theatre, carpentry, comedy, music –
is so important to society,
because it gives us an excuse
to externalize our inner thoughts and feelings.
Expression can be powerful…
creation can be trans-formative…
exposure to things can be inspirational…
discovering who you are and who you want to be
can define how, where, when,
and with whom you want live…
sometimes you only have an inkling
about what is bubbling away inside of you,
below the surface of your day to day thoughts –
and it is only at moments when your internal
defenses and barriers have been lowered enough
when what is within you is allowed to come out…
there is something evocative about
watching something being performed live –
like watching an artist or a band
let their art and their distinctive
sound and voice speak for itself –
that just overtakes you, consumes you,
and makes you do things and say things
that you would not ordinarily do.
The only way to find the answer
to a question is to ask it…
the only way to discover the truth
of something is to explore it…
the only way to get through life
is to live it, to fight for it,
to embrace it, to worship it,
to take chances, to take risks…
the only way to be is to be a poet –
because a poet lives every day
a life of reflection, of contemplation,
of inflection, of internalization,
of externalization, of expression,
of liberation and catharsis.
My Poem ‘Analog’
The world is like a ticking clock…
the universe is the most breathtaking
and complex time-piece…
the Earth is far more than
a green and blue planet
of trees, oceans, and rock…
life is a monument
and an unfinished puzzle
of an infinite number of pieces.
All worlds turn silently in a vacuum…
all life is unique…
all explosions create a plume…
all things have the ability to speak…
nothing is by accident…
every song is the offspring
of the trinity of a musical artist:
heart, mind, and soul…
all music is like a thing of magic…
the random and the unexpected
is what makes life feel
ever the more real…
sometimes the more unmarked
and the more perfect something appears
the more fake it can seem…
sometimes the more you add to something
the more that you take away from it…
sometimes the more you dream about something
the more that you build a bridge
between the imaginary and the seen,
and that is when something phenomenal begins
like a tempest of energy behind your eye-lids.
We all share, and we all receive…
we all upload, and we all download…
we all like our freedom,
and we like to be loyal in our own way
and return home to the place
and to the people we love…
we all think… we all breathe…
we all code… we all have our very own
introduction, life, story, and epilogue…
sometimes the best things in life
happen when you embrace
the unedited version of something,
and to me there are fewer things purer
than those that can be enjoyed in analog.
My Poem ‘Cuddling’
Cuddling with my best-friend,
my soulmate, my love, my life,
to me, is heaven…
I love my angel, my shining-star,
my beautiful and perfect princess,
and being in her arms
and having her in mine
makes me feel like
I am flying and as light as a feather,
and as high as a sky of twinkling stars.
Holding her close,
holding her tight…
feeling her heart beating
with my heart in my chest…
falling even deeper in love with her
as I look into her beautiful eyes…
to me, she is perfect…
to me, she is like unlike any other…
to me, she is epic…
to me, she is my number one,
as well as my unbelievable lover.
Her kiss is like the touch of sunlight…
her skin feels as soft
and as smooth as silk…
her hair is like a beautiful
Tennessee summer breeze…
her freckles to me are incredible…
loving her is the meaning of my life…
for her I would trek up any mountain
and run up any hill…
there is nothing I would rather do
than hold my Melissa in my arms
and take my ease…
I love combing her golden
and beautiful blonde hair
with my fingers,
and I love breathing her in,
and I love running my fingertips
and my lips over her hands…
us being together means everything,
and there is nothing that I would
rather be doing than sitting
on the couch, or lying on the bed,
with the love of my life
kissing and cuddling.
My Poem ‘Embrace’
The caress of a face;
the holding of hands;
the hypnotism of a trance;
the perfect touch
of a beautiful embrace.
The spiritual, the emotional,
the physical, the transcendental,
the look, the love,
the feeling, the instinctual,
the rush, the spark,
the explosion,
the silence of light and dark
that makes real the impossible,
that is indescribable,
that is a miracle,
that is heaven on Earth,
that is as beautiful as a hummingbird,
that is the ultimate force in the universe,
that poet’s obsess over while putting into words,
that many crave, that we all know,
that can surround you and lead you
like the path of a maze,
that is exciting and phenomenal
in the way that it can make someone glow.
A wish and a prayer
can blossom like a flower;
a thought and a memory
can steal your time;
a source of happiness
can have infinite power;
a destiny can be a life-line.
Until you feel the raging fire of desire,
until you let yourself fall in love
like a crashing meteorite from above,
until you see with your own eyes
what grows and what sustains
and what reinvigorates,
and what goes on and never dies,
only when you let things happen
and you do not resist,
can you know what it is like to be a star,
or like a pacific beach near an ocean
that has been newly sun-kissed.
To have someone.
To hold someone.
To love someone.
To be as precious as gold to someone.
To accept, to support, to champion,
to be a devoted companion,
and to be the one who leaves an indelible mark
on the inside of someone
but who on the outside
only leaves an invisible trace,
is to be the beholder of light, love,
perfection like that of an angel’s face
that is as timeless and is as ever-present
even after the first embrace.
My Poem ‘Back to the Future’
Wednesday,
October 21,
2015
There are things that silently inspire us;
there are things that we can call back to
that can have the effect of being
a time-travel flux-capacitor;
there are things that truly have a hand
in making us;
there are things from all of our pasts
that we constantly strive to bring back
and make them a part of our future.
For everybody,
every day of our childhood
is a playground that we always want
to make the most of;
when we are children
we all look up and are absolutely captivated
and hypnotized by the sight
of an airplane flying through the sky above;
everybody uses their imagination
and the memories of the things
that they have seen and heard
to build dream-landscapes and new worlds
of all hues and colours within their mind;
we all have a date that we always say
that if we could go anywhere
at any specific moment from our lives
that we would always choose to go to
and to go back to, if at any instance
it were possible to travel through time.
The idea of time-travel –
just as with the possibilities of space-travel –
is a wondrous fantasy that we have all
entertained more than once;
the amazing prospect of being able to go back
and come face to face with a direct relative
or ancestor of ours,
who we share a miraculous similarity to,
is one that we would all embrace with both hands
if we were given the chance;
some people would rather live in the future,
while others would prefer to know the future –
especially their own personal future;
I, personally, would love
to be able to flash back
and see myself, and perhaps introduce myself
to myself at a young age,
and reassure my adolescent self
that if you/I believe in yourself/myself,
and if you/I continue to be
who you/I know you are/I am,
and as long as you are happy,
every day of your life will contain within it
a glistening and shining jewel
like the pearl within an oyster.
Everybody wishes
that they could meet their parents
when they were younger;
everybody watches movies
that depict a potential future
and they hope that that imagined world
would come true sooner rather than later;
everybody wishes that they had a time-machine
to use at their leisure;
everybody sees things
or witnesses something
that they wish hadn’t happened
that they would definitely
change the outcome of,
or stop from happening entirely,
if they had the means
and the time to do over.
We are all time-travelers;
we are all traveling every second
into an unknown future
that we have next-to-no power over
to control beyond the actions
that we choose to make;
we are all effecting the world around us
with every step that we take;
we are all able to travel
without the need for roads
and discover our reason to be:
where we are going and why –
just like Doc. Brown and Marty McFly did
in one of my favourite films from my childhood…
Back to the Future.
My Poem ‘Living the dream’
Morning. Silence.
Blue sky. Sunday.
Sunshine. Green leaves.
The sound of flying birds and bees.
People having breakfast;
people cutting their lawn;
people still in bed
enjoying a well-earned rest;
people opening their eyes to the daylight;
people opening their mouths wide with a yawn.
Church bells ringing;
friends cycling;
music on the radio playing;
somebody somewhere
on the early morning ocean
sailing, loving, breathing, living.
Walkers, runners, riders,
painters, daydreamers, photographers,
embrace every moment of light and feeling;
diners, parishioners,
attend the same place of worship
and break bread together to prove
that they believe what they believe;
pilots, para-gliders,
balloonists, sky-divers
take to the air and defy gravity
and live the dream of touching the worlds ceiling –
people who just want to step away
from the rush of the world for a short time
and feel the amazing and the rejuvenating energy
of total and utter release.
People experiencing awe;
people feeling wonder;
people traveling far;
people feeling hunger.
I look at the world
and I see depths of colour;
I listen to what I hear,
and I hear sounds
from every length of the sound spectrum –
from water-drops in a pond
to the joyous explosion
of a child’s laughter.
Life is important;
life and purpose is individually indefinable,
and yet understandable, tangible,
as well as miraculously magical;
life can only be lived once;
life and dreams can sometimes be indistinguishable;
life is living and not worrying
about the things that people sometimes say
and the things that some people do;
life is reading, feeling, sharing,
and witnessing the dream of life come true.
My Poem ‘Momentous Momentum’
The momentous momentum of life
means something different to everybody
who feels it and experiences it;
the breathtaking fast-paced world
can seem too intense sometimes,
especially when trying to adapt
to the constant changes that happen
that may seem impossible and as hard
as trying to dodge the oncoming flight
of a bullet from a gun;
it is only the very young who have the luxury
to not have to worry about
what is going to happen next,
and because they know no better
if they were asked by one of their friends
to jump off a cliff they would in a heartbeat;
it is only as we grow older,
and start looking back and reminiscing about the past,
do we start caring about the passage of time,
and how important all the days of your life were
when you were blessed by love, friends, family,
and the golden light of the sun.
Children have no perspective,
because most perspective is born
from the marrying together of experience and meaning;
adults have the gift of knowing right from wrong,
and yet they still make the same mistakes over and over again;
children have all the energy in the world,
they could outlast anyone in a marathon,
but because they have so much drive and passion
it is hard for them to focus on just one thing;
adults find it challenging most of the time
to simplify their thoughts and their lives,
because, more so than a child,
their thoughts are always at the mercy of their emotions.
Your life is not short,
unless you choose to shorten it;
your choices become complicated
the more that you think;
your life is supremely important,
and you are constantly making a difference
to your own life, and to other peoples lives,
even on the days when you do not think
that what you are doing
would be anyone’s definition of something exciting;
your choice to get out of bed,
to think about another person,
to do something for yourself, and for someone else,
is something that you learned at a very young age
when the thought of looking out the window,
running out the door, enjoying all the time
and moments that you didn’t even know you had,
was absolutely awe-inspiring;
and even when you think that life
could not possibly do anything anymore to surprise you,
something will happen that will be profoundly enlightening,
and it may be something akin to an eternal puzzle,
that you might spend the rest of your life deciphering.
Never be frightened of your feelings;
daily embark on a personal mission;
remember as much as you can of what you see
and the moments in which you are living;
embrace the rush of inspiration,
and take every opportunity to think outside the box,
and without even realizing it at first
you will be a part, and enjoying,
the wondrousness of life’s momentous momentum.
My Poem ‘My Favourite Poet’
My favourite poet is a wizard of words;
my favourite poet is a magician of music;
my favourite poet is a force of feelings
that spark like a duel of swords;
my favourite poet is a dream-maker, a storyteller,
someone who has taken a journey,
and who is on a journey that is unique, personal, and epic.
My favourite poet has looked up at the stars
and knows how to harness the infinite energy
that they see, hear, and feel;
my favourite poet has known and has been in
every state of love, elation, and fusion,
and has had to walk a thin line, or two, in their time;
my favourite poet has woken up more than once in their life
and wondered whether the world they are living in
and the life they are living is really real;
my favourite poet writes their poetry all the time,
but not always on paper, and not always in words,
and sometimes their poetry comes to life and to light
in their actions and in their thoughts,
that are mostly an expression of their soul,
and wonderfully kind.
My favourite poet has inspired,
and has helped more people than they will ever know;
my favourite poet is a voracious observer,
who feels deeply, and who believes in things passionately;
my favourite poet writes at all times, and at any moment,
and wants to capture a moment in time timelessly
in any way that they can, wherever they go;
my favourite poet listens to every kind of music,
to every type of singer, who embraces every form of art,
and who reads anything and everything,
and who shares a connection with every artist –
some who may not even be aware that they are creating art or poetry.
My favourite poet uses the means and the instruments
of creativity of their time to reach high, and wide,
and to go far, and low;
my favourite poet is also your favourite poet;
my favourite poet is fearless, adaptive, articulate,
loving, caring, who feels just at home
with the people he adores and loves,
as they do walking the busy streets of a city,
walking over the hills and fields of the countryside,
or trudging ankle-deep in the freezing snow;
my favourite poet will continue to change the world
just by being a presence, a spirit, a voice,
an artist, an inspiration, in it,
and that is why they are and they always will be
my favourite poet.
Mark The Poet 