experiences

My Poem ‘Live for the moment’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Living for the moment,
living in the moment;
doing something different,
going somewhere different;
soaking up the rays of the sun,
going out and having all kinds of fun;
having so many ideas in your head
you do not know where to start,
thinking about so many things to do –
the thought of the potential possibilities
feel almost too much for both your head and your heart;
taking the initiative and acting on instinct;
making a plan to dive low and rise high,
like the bubbles of a fizzy drink.

Where once things felt harder,
because they felt so far away –
today, everything is accessible with a touch;
where once people used to think
that there was a literal edge and end to the Earth,
humanity has learned that no matter where
and in what direction you travel
there is always more to see and further to go –
because the world is constantly
and instantaneously redefining the meaning of living,
and when it comes to Life
that could not and will not ever be enough.

One of the greatest things you can do
is to plant a seed, and with your care and attention
watch it grow before your eyes;
one of the best experiences of your life
is when you are doing something with someone
and everything feels effortless, timeless, momentous,
and truth transcends words;
one of the moments that stays with you
is the feeling of intense and deep happiness
without the need to try;
one of the things that reminds you
that you are a part of something
larger and greater than you might have realized,
is something that you see and feel everyday –
but which you may take for granted,
and that is Life itself:
the air we breathe,
the language and the detail
in the landscape that surrounds us,
and in the burning core and in the heart
at the centre of our beautiful and glorious world.

There are oceans of energy,
as well as oceans of water;
there are reasons for things to be as they are,
beyond how they appear;
there are silent languages of signs
that say infinitely more than the response
of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer;
there are people who are more in-tune
with the needs, the voice,
and the poetry of our sphere;
there is a constant concert performing
that is free to attend, and anyone can revel at it
and participate in it with the gift
of their birth-born instrument;
there is a time to embrace and to seize life,
and that time is always right now…
so take this instant, and run with it!
And whatever you do next, promise yourself
to make the most of every second…
and live for the moment!

My Poem ‘The Umbrella’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The greatest escape on a rainy day,
the best cover to tie you over
from the lightning and the thunder;
whenever, wherever, you are
something akin to the sun of a Summer’s day;
a perfect oasis and the most serene place
of peace of mind and spirit;
that which when you hear it playing
is literally music to your ears,
that is personal –
but can also be shared in a different way
with people that you are in constant contact with,
that both stimulates all kinds of emotions and tears –
the thing that is so intrinsic to you
it is almost a part of your soul;
the coat of protection
that helps you brave the winter’s cold.

Like the roots of a tree,
like the canopy of a forest,
like the ground beneath all of our feet,
like the constituents of a bird’s nest,
we all have things above us, below us,
and around us, that ground us,
and that inspire us and amaze us
over and over, and without them
we would not be who we want to be,
and we would not be blessed with life’s
invisible, natural, but always present, poetry.

When the rain stops falling,
when the clouds part
and the sun shines again,
when life emerges from where it has been hiding,
as the writers continue to drive
the swirls and the course
of the ink of their pens,
when the Earth settles
and a brand new set of ripple effects
echo throughout the world,
like raindrops falling on the water of a pond,
when new experiences and new thoughts
accentuate and strengthen already deep-seated bonds,
when you need a shelter to wait for a break in the weather…
take out, unveil, open again,
that which has always served to be your refuge
and your constant umbrella.

My Poem ‘Daredevil’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Every child is born
just as their parents were;
even as you grow and you learn
you still cannot see your own
personal future;
everyone experiences things
in their lives that are a test,
in one way or another;
some things that happen
are out of our hands
and they are things
that are beyond our control,
but it is how we respond to things
and the way in which we react
that is a test of character beyond compare.

Accidents happen; people get hurt;
things don’t always work with precision;
one minute you can find yourself
standing tall and strong,
and the next you can be lying
face-first in the dirt;
terrible life-changing events
can sweep you up in them
that can affect you for the rest of your life:
one second you can be walking across a busy road,
and the next you might find yourself
in a corridor walking towards a bright light;
you can be bitten by a random insect,
you can be sitting and suddenly feel
a sharp pain in your arm;
you can wake up one morning and feel depressed;
you can unknowingly be causing yourself
and someone else harm or distress;
you could catch a disease
that is so destructive and corrosive
the cure to survive it may be to lose a limb,
and when you do come up against something
and you have to make a choice
to go with the flow,
to fight for your own identity
is the only way for you to win.

Life is hardly ever plain-sailing;
we all sometimes have to make a course-correction,
now and again;
sometimes we all have to suffer through pain
to feel something amazing.
We are all human; we are all biologically similar –
but no two peoples’ lives are one and the same.

I admire a soldier;
I know why it is important
to have the heart of a fighter;
I know what it is like to lose something important
and see it wither away, as if it were
being burned to ashes by a fire;
the people that fill my heart with optimism,
who overcome their often troubled lives,
are the people to me who always inspire.

To face every day with the same enthusiasm
as a child is glorious;
to never shy away from what you have to do
is truly audacious;
to explore and embrace a brand new frontier
is what it means to be a daredevil and adventurous;
to never shrink and to never turn away
from a worthy fight is the best way of showing
the true indomitable nature of the human soul;
and just how much,
no matter what you are going through,
you can be fearless and phenomenally courageous.

My Poem ‘Birthmark’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

34 years, 408 months,
1,774 weeks, 12,418 days ago,
on the 21st of April, 1981,
a little boy was born
and two of the most wonderful
and amazing parents
anyone could ask for
were blessed with a son –
that was the day
that I arrived in the world,
and that was when the tapestry of my life
slowly began to unfurl.

Mark James Hastings,
that is the name that I was given at birth
and that is who I have been
since it was printed for all time
on my birth certificate;
son, brother, friend,
wanderer, wonderer,
dreamer, hard-worker,
and 99.9 percent of the time
a lover of life and a writer
in the form of a poet.

People are always telling me
that I don’t look my age;
people are always asking me
what my secret is to having
an old soul inside someone
with such a young face;
people ask me all the time
where I get my ideas from
when I am writing,
and my response to that question
is one word: life –
because that is the epic adventure
that is eternally and limitlessly
exciting, enlightening, and inspiring.

I have flashes of memories of my childhood
that regularly come back to me;
I have emotions of experiences from my life
that daily make me smile and make me cry;
I have mental and physical photos
that I look at with glee;
I have questions that I ask
that begin who…? what…? where…?
when…? how…? why…?
But I will always know and remember
what is important and I will continue
to spread the word about what I have learned
in my life, and sometimes I secretly wish
that I could replay certain special moments
that I have had, even though I know
life is meant to be so that I can’t.

Today is my birthday;
today is a day that is close to my heart;
today is a day when I have so much to say;
today is always the day when I think back
and I talk to my younger self,
and even at the moment that I am born
I visualize myself in the mind
of my infant-self and I leave myself
a message and a question that has no end
that I know I will carry my whole life –
like a defining and indelible birthmark.

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My Poem ‘Dear Friend’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear friend,
how have you been?
What have you heard?
what have you seen?
What have you been doing?
How have you been feeling?
It’s spring here,
and the days feel longer;
it’s starting to get steadily warmer,
I have to say –
and every day, just recently,
has been sunny and bright,
and above my head has been
an endless blue sky.
Winter was cold,
however we had no snow –
and it felt like everything
was holding its breath;
but now everything and everybody
can breath regularly,
because everything now is clearer.

I saw a magician last week,
and I am still amazed by what I saw
and what I felt during their show;
I began reading an old favourite book of mine,
‘The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’,
and I am convinced that wherever I look
I am seeing the number ’42’ –
the answer to ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’;
I went to London again a few weeks ago,
and I had the most fantastic and inspiring time;
I have been going from place to place,
and I have been compelled to take pictures,
ask questions, and write a poem or two;
it has been weeks since I went to the cinema
to watch a film – however there are a few movies
that I am looking forward to seeing –
every time I go to the cinema
it has mostly been a special experience for me:
it always has, and always will be.

My life has been a roller-coaster
for a while, as you know,
and I have been through a lot –
not as much as some,
but I think my fortunes
may be on the rise again, like the rising sun.
I must go now, but I hope to hear from you soon.
Whatever you are doing,
I hope you are happy and having fun!
I hope you continue to live a blessed and happy life,
and I wish only the best for you,
my dear friend.

My Poem ‘Time Capsule’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the great things about poetry, and poems,
is that they are time capsules;
one of the greatest experiences for anybody to be
is an archaeologist, a digger, a finder –
a person with a question, searching for an answer;
one of the great things about capturing moments in time
is that one day in the future
you can accidentally unearth an old poem, a faded photo,
or a small gift that someone bought you,
and instantly know and remember where and when you were
at a time in your life, and in someone else’s life;
and, to some people, the pieces of time
can be like rocket fuel,
and one of the greatest things about being a writer,
like me, is that I know that I will always
have a wealth of memories in the form of living
and breathing mental pictures, and in notebooks,
filled with thoughts and emotions of mine,
that will someday number so many
they may even fill an entire library,
and I sometimes wonder what people will say and think
when my own words and experiences
are read and come to light again in the future.

I always wanted to leave something for other people to find,
a question that only I could answer –
when I was a child I even made my own time capsule
and buried it in my garden,
and for all I know it is still there;
at my school, we also buried a class time capsule –
however, what someone will find one day of mine
I cannot tell you, because unfortunately I do not remember.

The memory of the world is fluid;
to leave our mark, we need to make our own monument;
things can easily be forgotten,
and can quickly turn to dust,
if you do not etch them into reality
so that they cannot be rubbed out or undone –
and in that way they will always be
a seeing stone, a crystal ball,
and a bubble of time that will never burst.

When you read this,
remember that this is me who is writing this;
whoever you are,
remember and keep alive this moment,
and reread this poem of time,
and please keep a hold of your own memories –
it is one of the most human of things to do,
and also one of the most natural;
if you want to keep something for a rainy day
so that you, or someone else,
can rediscover it one day,
make it the thing that at that moment
is your life-long and your most precious wish.
Leave things behind you like breadcrumbs,
and keep going, and everything you leave behind,
of you, will be its own time capsule.

My Poem ‘Unforgettable Sixth Avenue’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

They don’t understand;
how could they?
Everything that happened,
everything that I wrote,
happened to me,
and I wrote it in my words
and from my perspective;
how could anyone else understand
what it was like to go through what I went through,
if they were not there at the time,
if they did not feel how I felt in the moment;
people tell that they like what I write,
but I wonder what they actually think,
what they imagine when they read something of mine,
and I wonder if anyone will ever be able
to truly be of the same mind as me.

I remember walking the streets of New York City,
like it was yesterday –
in my mind, and in my heart, I am still there,
and I want to be there:
I can still hear the sounds,
I can still taste the air,
I can still see the lights of Broadway at night,
I can still remember the moment I was found,
I can still go back there anytime of the day
in my imagination and daydream
even the smallest of details
that I still remember and love to this day,
as I will everyday.

I treasure my memories,
and I replay the best and the brightest of my life
as often as I can;
I miss people, places, times,
that will always be special to me,
more than anyone could imagine;
I relive my youth,
because those years I never want to lose;
I listen to the songs that I remember hearing
on the radio as a child, and I understand them
and what they were trying to say to me then,
now more than I ever knew.

My heart has been open wide since the day I was born;
every day of my life,
something unforgettable has happened to me,
and I remember so much
I wonder if there is anyone else
who loves being alive
and remembering their experiences as much as I do;
even now, I can easily flashback
to the most perfect day of my life,
to the night when I wrote my first poem,
or to the moment when I remember
standing on the street corner
on the “Avenue of the Americas”,
on a beautiful September afternoon,
in Manhattan, in New York City,
and being in awe of the entire world
and the gifts of life
that I can still see happening right this second,
on Sixth Avenue.

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My Poem ‘Imago’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The image in the mirror,
the reflection in the water,
the memories you will never forget,
the non-mistakes you will never regret,
the changing masterpiece of your life,
the height and the stream, from which,
and into which, you dive,
is you, is everything,
is what no one else will ever see,
or will ever know,
what you will be always and forever,
wherever you go.

No one will ever know your struggle;
no one will ever feel what you feel;
no one will ever know why you walked
and were splashed by all those rain puddles;
no one will ever see the image of your ideal.

There are skies of many colours,
that all mean something different to everyone;
there are situations and experiences that are also lessons;
the more intense something is,
and the more meaningful it feels,
can also mean the more fun;
you and your shadow are the ghost,
and the angel, or monster,
you can never out-run.

What you are going to be only you can decide;
who you want to spend your life with,
in one way or another,
is the answer to whom and what resides in your heart;
how easy life feels, you can only know
when you naturally realize
that you don’t even have to fly anymore,
because you can simply glide;
who will remember you when you are gone
are those who knew you and will always know you,
because of the marks and the ever-lasting echoes
of the muses of your art.

When you dream your last dream,
when you think your last thought,
when you have taught everything that you can possibly teach,
when you have been taught everything that you can be taught,
you will know that the metamorphosis you have been undertaking
is finally at an end and will be a link to everything
and everyone before and after you, like a bridge,
your entire life and its meaning will be who, and what you are,
and how you appear, and are seen, in your last image.