feelings

My Poem ‘From Scratch’

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

How do you build a house
without a blue-print?
How do you piece together a puzzle
without first seeing a picture
of how the completed image appears?
What makes a true friendship?
Where do you go
when you have caught all of your tears?

You can’t ever truly go back,
some things are meant to be broken and stay unmended;
some things are just not meant to last;
if we didn’t care,
then there wouldn’t be times when we feel offended.

I am like my Dad,
I am a man of deep feelings;
if I have been hurt by someone,
or something, I do feel sad;
if you start to believe what other people say
and think about you,
one day you might discover that while you were listening,
thinking, and obsessing, you were overlooking
the real thing that you have been missing.

If you had never heard music before,
and someone played you a song,
would you know what it was?
Would you still be able to feel
the same flood of emotions,
and be transported away in the only way
that music knows how to, and always does?

If you had never written a single poem before,
and then one day you sat down and wrote one for someone,
could you say what you wanted to say?
If someone meant the world to you,
how would you tell them, and in what way?

If I had to start from scratch,
if I had to reset and make the same choices over again,
if I could turn back time as easy as you can
with the hands of a clock, or a watch,
if I could talk to the dearly-departed who I once knew,
there are some things that I would love to say
for the very last time, and truly say a fitting goodbye
to an old friend.

Times must change;
everyone must meet their match;
you should never run away from a moment of rage;
when you think you have lost it all,
pick up the pieces that you can see scattered around you,
go home, and start again from scratch.

My Poem ‘Sensitive Skin’

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

I feel every raindrop;
I feel in awe after every burst and touch of the sun;
I feel so much strength of spirit and drive of life,
I could never give up;
I feel like my story and who I am
is written all over my skin.

I have always been sensitive to the thoughts,
the feelings, and the emotions, of those around me,
and those who are connected to me;
I would be there for my true friends until the very end,
even if doing so were to push me to life’s edge;
I live and feel every experience deeply,
as if they were my last,
and I often immortalize my memories in as much depth
as possible in a poem, or three;
I will keep going until I no longer can –
and that is my eternal pledge.

My skin is fair, and when the sun is as hot as can be
I burn to the colour of a lobster;
you would think that after everything I have seen
and been through, my skin would have become thicker
and as hard-wearing and as smooth as leather;
my skin still has impressions made on it
from when I was a child –
that have not worn away, and never will be worn away;
I still have the impressions of kisses,
and scars from times gone by,
that remind me of things and people,
every single day.

Every mark made on me is indelible,
and if seen under ultraviolet light
my skin would be like a piece of parchment,
or a creased manuscript,
that has been screwed up, thrown away,
rewritten, amended, over and over again,
that no matter what is done to it
can still be read and understood;
it is comforting for me to always remember
and see where I have come from,
and who was influential in making me Me.
Empathy, sensitivity, caring, creativity,
and an extraordinary memory,
is something that is in my blood;
the wear and the why of something,
and how something appears years after
it first originally came to be,
tells its own wonderful story.

Our skin is a map of where we have been;
our skin is touched and sculpted by our environment:
by nature, by the wind, by the rain, by the sun,
by the moon, just as the grand and great canyons,
valleys, mountains, of Earth, have been;
our skin is like the front cover
and the back cover of a living book,
in which an amazing, phenomenal, unique,
and individual story of a person’s life lies within;
there is no greater question than that of a person’s skin,
especially if you are like me, and you have sensitive skin.

My Poem ‘Momentous Momentum’

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

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.

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My Poem ‘Your Day’

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

Everyone, from every walk of life,
everywhere, knows and is familiar
with that feeling of relief
that overcomes us all
the minute that we finish a long day at work,
and we arrive home sweet home,
and we sit down and rest,
and put the events of the day we have had behind us –
especially if we have had a day
that felt as endless as the universe;
everyone, anyone, everybody, anybody,
who has a job or an occupation
that sometimes feels like a treadmill,
knows the full meaning of the old saying
“the only way forward is through”,
and it is amazing how good you feel
after a hard day at work –
it is unbelievable how much energy you have
when you walk through your front-door at home,
because that sensation lifts in no time at all,
and you may even resemble, as you sit in your chair,
the sight of a balloon that has recently burst.

Just like a car running on fumes,
as it finally reaches
and rolls onto the forecourt of a fuel station,
every working man and woman
also needs to refuel and build up their energy levels,
and take a break from what they need to do,
and relax while doing what they love to do,
and cool the temperature of their spirit –
like newly-forged white-hot metal.

Some people relax in front of their TV,
while watching their favourite television show;
some people lay back, put their feet up,
and listen to the latest songs
that are playing on the radio;
some people jump straight into the bath,
or into the shower, and wash away their day,
and let all their work-related stresses drift away;
some people put on their headphones,
and sit in their bedroom, on their bed,
listening to their mp3 player,
as they listen to their favourite artists
telling them what they need to hear –
because they know all the right things to say;
some people read a book;
some people write;
some people reach out for someone for a hug;
some people get changed from their work clothes,
eat, drink, turn off their phones,
and settle down for a quiet night.

Everyone’s day is their own;
everyone feels more like themselves when they are at home;
everyone has thoughts and feelings that are hard to convey;
everyone who has someone, or something, to come home to –
even if that is a mirrored reflection of themselves
that they can see into –
is lucky to have someone, or something,
that they can reply to,
when they are asked the question:
how was your day?