“Tomorrow’s World” is a poem taken from Mark’s 2025 poetry collection ‘The Storyteller‘ – now available to purchase in hardback and as an ebook from Amazon.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and read a transcript.
future
My Poem “2024”
The strange and the unusual…
the extraordinary and the unexpected…
life has a way of making you feel
like you are in a different world
than the one you were in before
on a regular basis, sometimes daily -
especially when you awaken in your bed
and you get the feeling that something
important has changed,
or is on the verge of changing everything.
I sometimes wonder what an earlier version of myself
would think if they were given
a snapshot of the future, and my present,
and how they would feel if they were told
what had taken place between their time and mine -
I would look so much older, so much greyer,
so much more like my father in so many ways,
and so much of what my younger self would learn
would be a shock to them just as much as
what happened was to shock to me…
I always believed that I could predict
what was going to happen and where I would be -
however no one can ever predict the outcome
of anything,
nor know what will lead to something,
unless they have foreknowledge,
or perhaps a map of all the things
that we will all encounter along
our life’s paths of multiple possibilities…
I know that even if a younger version of me
were to be given a chance to see and know
who and what they would one day be,
then they would choose to block out
what they might have learned,
because not doing so -
knowing that they could never
change anything that will happen
and has already happened -
would be something that they
would not be able to live with
without being driven mad.
Once again, this year was a time when I had to
make choices about what I wanted to do
and who I wanted to be -
and, as always, I chose to be
who I have been for as long as I can remember:
who my father tried to prepare me to be,
who people I used to know have helped me to be,
who I have always known was within me…
my life has always been one
of rebelling against expectations,
of doing what others could not
imagine I was capable of,
and of being there for those I love,
as well as never forgetting
who did what to whom, when, where, and how -
because I know better than most
that actions have consequences,
the effects of past events catch up with you,
and our past, present, and future selves
are influencing one another, sometimes subtlety,
over the continuum of our existence,
and which is why we sometimes feel
as if we have been somewhere,
as if we have done something,
or as if we have met someone before…
this year has been one of those times in my life
which will, once again, redefine me
and how I see myself whenever I look back -
because this year, like most years,
was the beginning, the end, and the start
of a new era and chapter in the story of my life,
and I wonder what will happen tomorrow
and beyond this year of regeneration:
the year that was 2024.
The Pathfinder: There is no tomorrow
My Poem “A Matter of Time”
I have always revisted the past... I have always lived in the present... I have always looked forward to the future - and there are times when I experience the past, the present, and the future collide: as if something momentous has happened, something revelatory, something that reminds me, yet again, that life is, essentially, multidimensional verses of poetry, and I get to see and understand things that I could not and would not have been able to at any other time - because I was not ready. I remember so much... moments mean more to me than most... I keep touchstones of experiences that enable me to travel through time that can happen as slow and as subtle as a raindrop falling from above, or as fast and as forceful as a gust... I can still recall how people looked, how places were, what was said, what song was playing on the radio - in some cases more than others, over the timeline of my life - and when some moments, in particular, do resurface and come back into focus, it almost feels as if everything that has happened and will happen is all happening all at once. In some ways, sometimes, we all must change... in some ways, sometimes, we all must break the mould that we have been cast in... in some ways, sometimes, we all must act and not necessarily know what the next steps to take will be... in some ways, sometimes, it is better to not think too much about what has yet to happen - and sometimes it is good to have a goal in front of you to focus on. We are all pilots, as well as passengers, travelling through the vortex of time hoping that one day we will eventually land and find ourselves somewhere that will give us what we have been searching for, without even knowing it... we are all capable of extraordinary things and each of us can do something that uniquely defines us - and yet, one thing that life teaches all of us is that the moment that you think you know it all or have seen it all you will discover that you don't, you haven't, you won't, and you can't; and why? Because sometimes we are not meant to know everything - only what we need to know, but not always what we want to know; because everything is a matter of time.
‘Playing God’ by Mark Hastings (2018) – audio book: The Man in Red – “Hermes”
My Poem “Millennium”
In a thousand years what will be left? In a thousand years what will be left of us? In a thousand years what will be left of our planet? In a thousand years what will be uncovered underneath the dust? In a thousand years what will we be thanked for by future generations? In a thousand years what will we as a species look like? In a thousand years will everyone be a cybernetic organism? In a thousand years will people have to stay inside most of the time to shield from the intensity of the sun's light? In a thousand years will the human race be living on other worlds, and travelling through time, as well as through space? In a thousand years will we have forgotten what we now hold most dear? In a thousand years will we have been contacted by multiple intergalactic inhabitants of the galaxy, not mention the universe? In a thousand years will people worship Artificial Intelligence and think of them as all knowing electronic gods? In a thousand years will we have created a source of universal equilibrium? In a thousand years will we wish then that we now would have learned our lessons about tempting fate? Only our descendants can know for sure what is going to happen in the thousand years of the next millennium.
A Poem A Day #165: Future Me
My Poem “Mobile Life”
Every hour of every day
most people are either
thinking about their mobile phones,
they are looking are the screens
of their mobile phones,
they are interacting with their mobile phones,
or they are sharing and conversing
with other people far away
by using their mobile phones –
because most people are hooked,
addicted, and in need of being
connected to the web that encompasses
most of the world and gives
many people a reason to live,
a means to stay informed
about all manner of things
happening instantly and simultaneously
at any given moment.
Once upon a time, a telephone
was a stationary technological marvel
that allowed two people
to have a conversation with one another –
however, then the World Wide Web was born
and from that moment on people
started to interact in many different ways
and with people who they may never
have known existed before…
and then, when telephones became
more portable and more mobile,
the technology of communication
evolved again and people discovered
that not only could they communicate
with words and sounds they could also
communicate with photographs,
images, symbols and icons that reflect
what they are feeling emotionally.
Computers used to be huge,
room-sized, mechanical innovations
capable of completing calculations
so basic and so primitive by today’s standards –
however, in their day,
they were marveled at because
of what they could do and because
of the thought of what
they could evolve into in the future;
however, now, today, there is no line
to differentiate between what
a computer is and what a phone is
because when you take into account
what each can do there is nothing
that separates them –
computers can do what phones can do
and phones can do what computers can do,
meaning that the lines that one divided
technology, devices, and people
are now blurred into obscurity,
as are the borders and the distances
between countries and homes.
Everybody on Earth is living in a time
when every child born from now on
will never know of a time when
instant interconnectivity is not a fact of life –
and in the future most people
will most likely spend most of their time
interacting with one another
in a simulated reality that looks and feels
like the “real” world but in which
they feel more accepted and at home,
just like people do today in the way
that everything that they do
when it comes to interaction
and living their daily lives
centres around and is instantly
accessible by tapping away on the screen
of their mobile phones.
My Poem “Game Changer”
Everything comes back around.
The past becomes the present,
the present becomes the future,
the future slowly unveils itself
before you – and, quite frequently,
you come to realize that you,
and time, are going, and can only go,
in one direction: forwards.
Every memory within your mind
was made for a reason, for a purpose,
as a reminder, as a way for you
to retrace your steps when you feel lost
and as if you have forgotten parts
of the road of life that you have traveled down.
Beginnings are always tricky, uncertain, testing,
and they are both a place and a time upon which
much needed patience is required to ensure
that whatever you are building and making
will standing the tests of time, gravity,
and everything that is thrown at it as it grows.
Everything and everyone goes on a journey
throughout their life that is unexpected,
and the only thing that you can be sure about
is that nobody can ever know
what is going to happen next
unless they make the choice to find out.
Endings are hard, endings are complicated,
endings are generally a maelstrom of emotions
and feelings that are expelled,
that sometimes do not make any sense –
but when you stop and you break down
each and every emotion, feeling,
and instinct that entangles you,
you realize that everything that you have done,
everything that you have built,
everything that you have made,
everything that you have invested into,
and everything that you watched be destroyed,
are the constituting atoms and molecules
that made something what it was.
There are times in life when we are all learners…
there are times in life when we are all teachers…
there are times in life when we are all fighters…
there are times in life when we are all believers…
there are times in life when we are all influencers
of people, actions, choices, decisions, fates –
and when we realize that our actions have consequences
and that what we do will ultimately impact the life
of another person, another thing,
then each and every one of us
can come to discover that we are all
in fact game-changers and vital participants
in the universes ever-evolving plan.
My Poem “A hundred years”
It has been a hundred years
since the First World War ended –
“the war to end all wars” –
and yet humanity still wages war
against itself every day…
it has been a hundred years
since brave men put their lives
on the line to bring peace
to the entire world –
and yet, every day, soldiers
still march, fight, and oppose
the might of an adversarial army and ideology
whose subscribed members
cannot always be plainly identified…
it has been a hundred years,
it has been a life-time,
it has been a century since families
put their hands together to pray
that we may never again see the day
when humanity would take up arms against itself –
and yet people still do harm to others every day,
and peace between everybody cannot be maintained…
it has been a hundred years
since the soldiers and the survivors of World War I
put down their weapons and began
the long walk of grief,
hoping to remember the fallen
and to never allow history to repeat itself;
however, 11 years after the end
of “the war to end all wars”,
another war sparked into life
and millions of people died –
and when it ended, six long years later,
the world was assured that the peace
that was won at a heavy cost would always endure…
it has been a hundred years
since an understanding was reached by many nations
to work together instead of fighting each other –
and yet, a hundred years since
war should have become a thing of the past,
our world is still in a constant struggle with itself
and not everybody wants to get along with one-another;
however, no matter the constant conflict
that still exists around the world,
I still remain hopeful that humanity
will one day find universal peace and serenity –
but hopefully it won’t need to take another hundred years
for the entire world to come to its senses
and learn to get along with each other
for the sake of our children’s future.
Mark The Poet 