friends

My Poem ‘The True Gift’

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

The true gift of Christmas,
the best present you could
ever receive or give;
the truth of the season
you can always trust,
the spirit that you can
walk a thousand miles with;
the touch to heal all scarred hearts,
the light that shines like the North Star;
the beautiful angel who shows you
the true meaning of life
that so many have for years
been in search of;
the true goodwill of somebody
that everybody at one point or another
has been touched by.

Christmas is, and should always be,
a celebration of shared ties
and meaningful connections;
Christmas can only be Christmas
if you give without any expectation
of anything in return;
Christmas is always full of passion,
and if you are fortunate
then whatever thoughts that you think
may return to you in more amazing and wonderful ways
than could ever be mentioned;
to open your heart for another, whenever you can,
is the true message that resonates
every moment of the season.

Christmas trees; shiny ornaments;
one of a kind shared and special moments;
the miracle of rejuvenation and joy
that constantly brings to life
a story that will always exist;
the motto on the family-crest of St. Nicholas;
the true meaning of life
that is more than a myth;
giving, sharing, remembering,
meeting, living and breathing,
every thing about everything
is how you know in more ways than one
the true gift of Christmas.

My-Poem-'The-True-Gift'

My Poem ‘The Bright Side’

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

There is no such thing
as total-darkness;
there will always be
those who have more
and those who have less;
in a dark-blue sky
there is nothing like
the pure white light
of the moon’s crescent
to fill you with awe
and relieve you of any stress.

When the sun rises after a long night,
when the moon appears like a ghost in the sky,
when dawn calls, when dusk falls,
when ocean-waters become a mirror,
when candle wicks burn
and their flames flicker,
when eyes open, when eyes close,
when the world of the day has awoken,
when the aroma of the air
is as distinctive as the smell
after a thunderstorm
or as unmistakable
as the pungency of burnt-toast.

With the first observance of fire
followed a basic understanding
of the human heart,
and what lies and burns
at the core of every living thing;
when humanity first saw lightning,
it must have automatically
occurred to our ancestors
that it must be the energy
and the work of the gods
who dwelled in the sky above;
when the first language of expressions
and signs was first devised
and replicated over and over again,
it must have been phenomenally exciting;
when the first heart ached for another,
that was when humanity first discovered
one of the greatest forces in the universe –
the power of love.

Most people, and most things,
do not get a choice about how and when
their story will come to an end –
every sunset, every sunrise,
could be someone’s last;
over time truly is how and when
you find out who are your true family and friends –
and every day that comes and goes,
and who it is that you see
when you look around yourself,
is when and how you find out
who is your eternal star and sunshine –
and they who will always be the one
to show you life’s
ever-present bright side.

My Poem ‘Ice Dreams’

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

Ice-skating in New York City;
building snowmen in London;
waiting to hear
if the groundhog saw his shadow
in Punxsutawney, Pensylvannia;
sitting in your living room with your children
while watching the movie ‘Frozen’;
collecting fire-wood;
going for long walks;
sitting in a cafe with a coffee and a good book;
meeting up with friends
and enjoying the company of someone
who you haven’t seen in a while
and having a good catch-up and talk;
wrapping up well in thick clothing;
wrapping gifts to be given to friends and family;
listening to seasonally-themed songs
playing on the radio that you can’t resist
the temptation to sing-along with;
the tradition of decorating a room and a tree
that when completely adorned
has the wonderful gift
of making all that look upon it
incredibly happy.

Everybody has a vision and a memory
of what Winter is all about;
to some people the cold temperatures
of winter are what they dislike the most
and they would gladly, if they could,
do without;
to me, it wouldn’t be Christmas especially
if it were not cold, cloudy,
and at any moment it did not feel
like it were about to snow at any moment –
I don’t think I could get used to
having a Christmas, in say Australia,
where it is as hot as the turkey
that is being served up on the dinner table
outside in the sun,
where as you are eating
you can smell the aroma
of food being cooked
on a nearby barbecue.

There are some people
who have never seen
a single real-life flake of snow
fall before their eyes;
their are some people
who have seen more winter days
to last a life-time;
their are some people
who could just out of their window
at a flurry of snow without ever getting bored,
while happily enjoying mulled-wine and mince-pies;
their are some people who know and love
that it is winter by the intoxicating smell of pine.

There is something about winter
that brings out different things in different people;
there is something amazing and beautiful
about how the light of the sun
shines on a winter day
and the way that it can make everything gleam;
there is something fairy-tale-like, and almost magical,
about a snow-covered world;
there is something about everything
that stirs the imagination
that calls back to memories of childhood experiences –
and though to some the thought of cold
and of snow might be their version of a nightmare,
everybody can remember every time
that they had a waking-
or a night-time envisioning
of a very memorable,
and a most-likely cold,
ice dream.

My Poem ‘Be Good’

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

You only have one life;
you only have one mother;
you only have the short space
of a life-time to shine;
you only have precious moments
that you will always remember;
no matter the struggles
and the pressures of growing up,
no matter if someone tells you
that what you have to offer
and who you are is not enough,
never once believe,
or consciously disrespect,
the life you were born into
in which anything
is possible to achieve.

We make friends;
we lose friends;
we love; we learn;
we jump; we fly;
we sometimes find ourselves
in a dark tunnel
constantly running towards
the direction of a bright and hopeful light –
because that is what is supposed to happen,
because that is life in a nutshell,
because that is the recurring pattern,
because that is what makes our time on Earth
as worthwhile, glorious, beautiful, and incredible.

We all have days in our life
when we think no one understands us,
not even our parents;
we all have times
when we question our own worth;
we all have times when we are
wrongly deceived into believing
that someone knows what is best for us;
we all have to make mistakes
so that we can some day
find our true destiny
and our reason for being here on Earth.

The person who has always been there for you,
the one who has always made you happy,
the protector and the guardian
who has always and will always
do all that they can for you,
the only one who will miss you
no matter where you are
and who will always worry that you are ok,
could be your best friend,
your girlfriend, your husband,
your brother, your sister,
your father, your mother –
no matter who they are,
or where they are,
they want nothing more
than to see you and to help you
get to the place where you want to be
so that you can be who you know
in your heart you want to be.

Be kind; be there;
do not choose to go somewhere blindly;
be the one who everybody knows will always care;
believe; be in love;
do not be led by the false prophecies of the bad;
be grateful;
look at the shining star of your life
and feel glad;
be yourself,
and above all else be good.

My Poem ‘Countryside’

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

As I dream about a city across the sea,
there is someone over the ocean
wishing that they were walking
the fields of the English countryside;
as I sit and hear the sounds
and the accents that I remember so well,
there is someone in the very country
where I wish I was now
thinking about what it would be like
to be where I am, doing what I am doing,
completely untroubled and free.

As I write I think about that friend of mine
telling me about their wish,
and I wish that they and I could trade places,
even if it were only for a few minutes,
and even if it was only a momentary
swapping of minds and lives,
so that we two could for moments
walk in each others shoes
and know the taste and the smell of each others air…
if they were here and if I were there.

If my friend were here at this moment
they would cry at the beauty of the sight of my home;
if my friend could see with my eyes,
their entire vision would be met by
all the colours of the rainbow
represented by the colours of the surrounding
and blooming flowers;
if my friend were able to take in the perfection
that I have known my entire life
which never gets old,
they would never be able to describe verbally
what their eyes cannot look away from –
even if they were describing the landscape
to someone on the phone;
if my friend could follow in my footsteps,
they could and they would never stop exploring
and seeing something new and beautiful
everywhere they looked,
even if they kept walking for 24-hours.

Even when it rains,
and the leaves of the trees are speckled
with droplets of cleansing water from above,
the green that is England through and through
only becomes even more striking,
and when the clouds part
and the sunlight comes blazing through
there is no view anywhere
that is more amazing, nor breathtaking,
than the sudden explosion of colour
that is nature accentuated by the golden rays
of the most important star in the sky
that always makes my home
look like a real life landscape of art
that could never be fully explained,
because it is what it is:
a true, heart-breaking, paradise,
that is so beautiful
it will never stop bringing tears to my eyes.

There are people who I have not yet met face to face,
but who I want to meet;
there are places where I have been
that I want to return to some day,
where when I left them I cried;
there are friends of mine in other countries
who I can’t wait to fully introduce myself to
in the flesh when we first meet and greet;
there are places that I see every day
that the sight of makes me smile,
that if I could I would share with the entire world –
where I have done my fair share of walking,
thinking, contemplating and imagining,
in the most heavenly place on Earth
that is the great, glorious, gorgeous
and beautiful English countryside.

image

My Poem ‘The Ember days’

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

There are days in the year
when so many of us gather together;
there are days when we meet up
with our family and friends
and reminisce and tell stories,
as if we are all basking
in the glow of everything
while sitting around a camp-fire;
there are days when we happily
give gifts to each other;
there are days when we are held,
and we hold the thing
that truly matters in life,
and share love and feel love –
like holding, without fear of being burned,
a glowing red-hot ember.

There are days of the year
when the energy-level is extraordinary;
there are days when every hour
is a treat as sweet as chocolate;
there are days of the year
when you can look around
and truly take-in just how lucky you are,
and remember the glory days of your life-story;
there are days which are too important
to ever be forgotten.

There are days that are significant to us,
because the anniversary of a particular day –
where we were, with whom,
and what emotions were stirred
and what memories were eternally made;
there are days that can come to define our entire lives
in special and magical ways;
there are days when our internal spirit
rises up and overflows out of us
and we show a side of us
that leaves people in a daze;
there are days when words are just not enough
to say what you want to say.

Every day of our year
is about remembering the days
and the times that were,
and continuing traditions of connection
so that we may realize time and time again
that each and every one of us
only has one chance of making our lives
the way we want it to be;
days soon become months,
months soon become years –
however, our lives are timeless;
and even if every day isn’t light and bright,
filled with gifts, presents,
smiles, flowers, and candy,
there is always something there for us to take with us,
and there are always lights in the dark for us
to look at like the illuminations of a Christmas tree.

Never forget the people you have known;
never forget the people who would
never knowingly leave you alone;
never forget the happiness you felt
that continues to live on deep inside you
that you will take with you to the grave;
never forget the days of light and celebration
that will continue to blaze throughout your life,
and bring you back always to the ember days.

My Poem ‘Hang Out’

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

In arcades, in malls, in parks,
in places where people assemble like disciples,
in large groups, in smalls numbers,
there are places that continue to attract people,
for one reason or another,
because of what they mean,
and because of what they offer.

Friends meet up to talk, to see each other,
to catch up, to share some time with each other,
to have a drink with each other,
to have lunch with each other,
to maybe see a film at the cinema with each other,
to have fun with each other,
to celebrate life, and to continue to bond with each other.

The things that interest us,
the things that we think about
and feel the most passionate about,
are mostly the same things
that our friends think about,
and usually that is the reason that they are our friends;
the things that we could only share with our friends,
and talk about with our friends,
are usually the things that we cannot speak
to anyone else about –
because unless they know us and who we are,
the context of what we have to say
would be unfathomable to understand.

It’s easy to hang out with people who you don’t know,
but have something in common with,
now more than ever;
where before you would have to arrange a place
and a time to see and to talk to someone,
now, in the instantaneous interconnected age
of infinitely accessible knowledge,
we all can reach out in a second to someone
who might live five thousand miles away,
or five minutes down the road,
and have a conversation with them
using incredible technology in the palm of your hand,
as well as share moments that you have captured
and think they might like.

For thousands of years, people young and old,
children and adults, at different stages in their lives,
have come together to be in the same place,
at the same time as people
with whom they are exactly alike
to the degree that you might think
that they were separated at birth.
The draw to something amazing, and mesmerizing –
a feeling, a light, a flame, a memory,
an individual, a shared understanding –
is one that everybody and every thing
has felt and feels daily in all walks of life,
and to those who are members of every species on Earth.

There are things that we all want to discover,
and learn more about;
there are people who we wish we knew personally,
and we feel things for them
that before them we never felt.
There are clubs, colours, books,
music, past-times, fashions,
that can unite the many and the few, equally –
so much so that they make our heart shout.
There will always be places, and people,
where, and with with whom,
that we will crave to be, and to see,
to spend as much time in their embrace,
and simply hang out.

My Poem ‘Science’

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

As one cover closes,
another cover opens;
as one world freezes,
another continues to never know
the feeling of what it is like to be frozen;
as one story ends,
another adventure begins;
as a stranger becomes a friend,
another friendly acquaintance
is off to see something new
that they will declare when they see you next
that they had never seen such a thing before, or since;
as one road changes,
another connects with the one before
but simply with a change of name;
as one fire rages,
another dies until it is no more
than the after-glow of an extinguished flame.

Starts, and finishes;
beginnings, and ends;
birth, and death;
life’s phases of change and transformation;
thoughts, and wishes;
fresh air, breathing, cleansing;
right, or left;
chaos, order, belief, science;
everything in balance,
and happening for a reason,
like the variable in a perfect equation.

When things recur in nature;
when things are born, twinned with another
instead of singularly and alone;
when the present is also the past and the future,
that is when we all should take notice
with all our senses and instincts –
because it is then that we realize
that it is always better to be a designer
of your own life and style,
instead of simply being the same as someone else
and acting like a clone.

The seasons of Earth,
the names that we have given
the phases of our planet,
are never the same from one year to the next:
some winters are mild,
some winters are unbelievably harsh,
some summers are as golden as those
we always remember having when we were a child,
some summers are like being bitten hard
by a tyrannosaurus rex.
The sun continues to burn, and shine;
the water level of our rivers and lakes rise
and they fall, unexpectedly;
life is what it is,
and can never knowingly be kind, or unkind;
things happen again and again, invariably,
wonderfully, and sometimes surprisingly poetically.

Life is a continuous moment,
that our time existing in which
could be balanced on the tip of a needle;
our voices are but a whisper
in the cosmos of perfect silence,
and it is life’s precious finality
that empowers me the most,
and inspires me to the deepest of depths
and to the greatest of heights –
because once our lives are lived to their entirety,
we expire and then begin again anew,
and with another life to live and slowly reveal –
and that is the great journey,
and that is the great discovery of life,
of the universe, and the answer that follows
the equality sign posed eternally
from time in memorial by a meaning of life,
that is both a religion to believe in,
as well as the refined tried and tested
practice of a science.

My Poem ‘As the song says’

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

I am only ‘Human’;
I live to ‘Imagine’;
In my ‘Imagination’
I have been ‘To the Moon And Back’;
I love intensely, endlessly,
‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’;
I have seen the face of ‘Heaven’;
when I was younger, I used to wish
that I had been ‘Born In The U.S.A.’;
I have stood high above the world
and have been captivated by the awe-inspiring
height I am standing at ‘All Along The Watchtower’;
I would give ‘Anything’ to look at my own reflection
and be the ‘Man In The Mirror’;
I would love it if I could make some moments
last forever, and ‘Stay Another Day’.

My ‘Burning Heart’ has never burned hotter or brighter;
my taste for life is as sweet as ‘Chocolate’;
my best has never been ‘Closer’;
my ‘Human Nature’, my inside-out emotions,
let me feel, see, and allow me to ‘Dance In The Dark’;
my new day feels ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’;
my hope has the power of a ‘Kiss from a Rose’;
my smile lingers;
I love my angel of inspiration,
and I could never ‘Let Her Go’.

The world and I play ‘Mind Games’;
the soundtrack around me makes me ‘Move Like Jagger’;
the world is able, this day and age, to bestow instant ‘Fame’;
nature is able to show you the truth of things,
daily from its ‘Little Black Book’,
and give everyone a dose of ‘Instant Karma’.

I am not just a ‘One Trick Pony’.
I embrace all things with ‘Open Arms’.
I sometimes feel ‘Out of Touch’,
but I always come ‘Back to Life’
when I feel ‘The Power of Love –
and I daily feel like I could run a marathon,
and climb to the top of high steps,
and raise my arms, as if I am ‘Gonna Fly Now’
like ‘Rocky’.
I feel like I know ‘Salvation’ when I ‘Say Something’,
and I sing to the one I love ‘Everything I do, I do it for you’;
as astronauts have silently said while ‘Walking On The Moon’,
as friends have felt ‘Always’, ‘Together’ –
especially those who were alive in the ‘Summer of ’69’;
and I never forget that ‘Life is a highway’,
that ‘True Love Never Dies’,
and that ‘The Best is yet to come’,
while we are all ‘Surrounded’ by the wonder
of a ‘Sky Full of Stars’, like the song says.

My Poem ‘Poet’s Corner’

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

I am sitting here writing;
I am sitting here musing about the world;
I am sitting here enjoying a coffee-
the voices of people,
and the sounds of everyday life;
I am sitting here alone at my table;
and on the table next to me
a fellow poet is meeting up
and having a conversation
about how they just wrote a new poem,
about how beautiful the new day’s morning is,
and about things that they have seen
which they find exciting, inspiring, amazing,
and they sound just like I do in my head,
and I cannot stop smiling.

The poet sounds like they are from South Africa,
by their accent;
the poet is talking to their friend,
and they sound and they talk with so much
clarity and passion.

The poet is wearing a poppy;
the poet is not eating or drinking anything;
the poet is definitely someone after my own heart,
and obviously, to them, living, breathing,
writing, communicating, is not just a hobby;
the poet and his friend, it turns out,
have never met before,
and have only communicated over the internet,
until this moment;
the poet is describing a “great adventure”
that he has undertaken, and is still on,
and they are obviously, genuinely,
happy about the joys in their life,
and what they have gives them,
and what having a connection with people brings.

It is truly unbelievable what happens in life.
It is no accident who you may sit down next to.
It has been my experience that artists, writers,
poets, and people of deep thought passion,
and imagination, are drawn to each other
by a mutual drive;
it is the way of the universe
that people are who they are,
and the way that they are,
and there is an important reason
that people do what they do.

I watched in silence as the poet and his friend
exchanged gifts and spoke about what their presents
and their presence means to them;
I was hypnotized by their conversation,
by their story, and by everything they said;
I was enthralled, but I was sad –
because I knew that I would probably
never see or hear these amazing friend again,
but I too was thankful to them both
for coming into my life,
even if it were only for a sparing,
precious, and short time,
and the whole time that I was in their presence
I was unbelievably energized and phenomenally inspired.

There are too many coincidences and commonalities
for life to be just a string or a chain of accidental encounters,
there are too many things that matter to too many at once
for them to be unconnected,
even if they are the separate lives and stories of strangers.
There are so many places on this Earth
which attract people who share a brilliant,
beautiful, open, heart of a storyteller;
there are places like this place
that I am sitting in right now
that have a meaning and a power to them –
which I like to describe, and which I believe,
are amazing poet’s corners.