happy

My Poem ‘Buzzing’

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

When you get some good news,
it is like you are a honeybee
drunk on the nectar of a flower;
when you hear that things are happening
the way that you hoped they would,
it can feel like you are walking on air;
when you are told something that makes the world
look even more bright and beautiful,
you cannot help but smile from ear-to-ear;
when you see evidence
that whatever you have been doing
for longer than you can remember
actually has meaning and matters,
you start to see and feel happiness
as if it were something new
that you had never known before,
and you start to believe that there is someone
in this world who truly does care.

A new car, a new job –
the means and the motivation to go where you want
so that you can do what you want to do
is something that some people take for granted;
a new direction, a new life –
the freedom to be something and somebody different
in a brand new environment
is something that some people have never had,
but it is what they have always wanted;
a new story, a new chapter –
a break-away from the cycle of the monotony
that some people often fall into
and sometimes cannot figure out
how to see what else is out there
that they may have been missing;
a new opportunity to shine
comes like a brand new sunrise –
but sometimes to get something in return
you have to put something of yourself out there first –
like tossing a coin into a well, or a fountain…
sometimes you have to spend a token of your own
so that you can stimulate and disturb the waters
of that to which you are wishing.

Being at the right place, at the right time,
is not a science – it is a matter of fate;
being at the right point in your life
for you to be gifted your hearts-desire
sometimes only happens once –
it is like the feeling of butterflies in your stomach
that you get when you suddenly stop
but the world feels like it is still spinning;
being on the verge of a new adventure
is always amazing beyond any words
that could ever be estimated;
being hopeful, happy, enthusiastic, and optimistic,
at any time that you are lucky to feel that way
is a blessing to your heart, your mind, and to your soul,
that makes every part of you feel
like they are in a state of ‘fluttering’ –
like the sound of the wings of a bumble-bee
that vibrate so fast they are quite literally buzzing.

My Poem ’35 years’

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

It’s been 35 years
since I first saw the light of the world…
it’s been 35 years
since I first made my first sound…
it’s been 35 years
since I first heard
and tried to say my first word…
it’s been 35 years
since I first looked up to the sky
and I saw the very first sculpture
that formed in the clouds…
35 years of thoughts,
35 years of dreams,
35 years of memories,
35 years of the Earth and me.

When I think back
there are things that happened
that now in retrospect
seem more like a dream than reality…
when I remember where I once was,
and with whom, it sometimes feels like
a story that I am thinking about writing,
or something that may one day be
the inspiration for future poetry…
when I see photos taken when I was a child,
or those taken just a year ago
on a bridge high above the Tennessee river,
every memory to me feels like
they just happened yesterday…
when I think about how things have changed for me,
and for everybody around the world,
I sometimes find myself speechless
and unable to know exactly what to say.

I cannot thank my amazing parents,
Bernadette and David Hastings,
for all that they have given me
every day since the day that I was born…
I cannot thank my beautiful fiance, Melissa,
enough for giving me the gift
every day of unlimited and unbounded love…
I cannot thank my loving family enough
for the smiles and for the world of happiness
that continues to refill
my floor-less ocean of emotion and happy tears…
I cannot thank everybody who I have known
throughout my life who have shared
moments with me over of the last 35 years.

My Poem ‘More than you could ever know’

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

When people look at us
they don’t know what we’ve been through;
when I look at you I see a dream come true;
when people see us holding hands
with smiles on our faces
they are looking at something beautiful;
when you look at me
I just hope to God
that you can see
just how much I love you.

When I look up to the sky,
when I look into space,
when your beautiful light fills my eyes,
I just want to reach out
and touch your breathtaking and perfect face.

I hear your voice while I am lying awake,
I flash-back every minute
to every moment of our shared days;
I see your smile and my heart beats faster;
I look into your eyes and I can see our future:
holding hands, always together…
you and I listening to music
as we slow-dance with one-another;
I have been in love with you from the start
and there isn’t a second that goes by
when I don’t love you with a passion
like a fire that always burn.

Every-thing else is a second thought
compared to you and I, my gorgeous angel;
no one knows me like you do;
if you could only see yourself
the way that I see you
then you would see God’s most perfect
and divine creation of all;
every night when I lay down to sleep,
and every morning when I wake up,
I smile to myself because I am in love
and I am the happiest man alive –
because I know without having to ask
that you love me, and I never want you
to ever forget that I love you
more than you will ever know.

more than you could ever know-poem

My Poem ‘My Loving Parents’

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

My Mum and Dad’s love for each-other
is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen;
my Mum and Dad’s bond is the strongest
that has ever been;
my Mum and Dad would do anything for each other,
no matter what;
my Mum and Dad were always meant to be together,
and you can tell that fact
any time that you are with them
and you see them together –
they are not only each-other’s soulmates,
they are each other’s best friends,
who have both been through a lot.

Throughout my entire life,
I have been a witness to magic;
since I was a child,
every day I have seen my Mum and my Dad
go above and beyond for their children;
in my opinion, no other two people
who have ever been in love with each other
have given as much for one-another
as my parents have –
it is in both of their DNA to give;
to have parents who are as amazing
and as incredible in every way as mine are,
I know with all that I am
that there has never been a more blessed
or a more fortunate son.

I am the best of two hearts
eternally bound to each-other;
I am the art of two artists
whose life and love still lives
and will forever continue
to course through my veins;
I am in constant awe
at what my mother would do for my father,
and what my father would do for my mother;
I am sometimes lost for words
when trying to describe
the truly wonderful and heroic two people
who I am proud and so lucky
to be able to call my loving parents.

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My Poem ‘The First of Many’

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

They say that how you spend
the first day of the year
is also how you will spend
your last day of the year,
and vice versa;
every year for as long as I can remember
I have spent the first early hours of every year
doing the same thing
that I did the year before on January 1st;
some people make resolutions
and vow to stick by them
and repeat the same steps
over and over again like a novice dancer;
every year on day one I set out into the world
and I seek to quench
my ultimately unquenchable poetic thirst.

‘Happy new year’ is a hope for the best;
a smile and a kiss when the clock strikes twelve
at the first second of new year’s day
is like the important first move
in a game of chess;
a thought about someone else
can be like a torch
to help guide someone through a fog;
your constant companion
and your best friend
will help you overcome anything
that you may be dealing with –
and they could be your partner,
your hero, or they could be
your ever-faithful dog.

This is my first stepping-stone of hope;
this is my first promise to stay true to myself
in the form of my poetry;
this is my foray into a new future
I do not yet know;
this is my first new year’s resolution, of a sort,
and I can guarantee already
that it is but the first of many.

My Poem ‘Christmas Time’

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

“So this is Christmas,
and what have you done…”
sang John Lennon on the radio
as I sat with my pen and notebook,
as the sun shone through the windows
and reflected off the chrome panels
of a nearby building;
I was near an open door all the while –
but not for a second did I feel cold;
the Christmas songs kept playing,
the air was cozy,
and everybody around me
was locked in their own world;
the Christmas colours and lights
were bright and bold,
and just as I got to the end
of the first verse of my new poem
a familiar voice sang loud:
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

I sit. I stare. I blink. I smile.
I write. I think about how much
I have in common with the life of a sundial –
because I too would be nothing
without the light of the star from afar
that gives my life meaning
and endows me with all that I need
to be who I am supposed to be.

As Louis Armstrong sings
of the “trees of green”
and the “red roses too”
and the blue skies of our “wonderful world” –
I know, I see, I remember
all that he sang about
and what I too believe makes out planet
standout from any other
in the entire universe;
so often, I become both lost and overflowing
with words to describe
all that I see and all that I feel;
I do not know who I would be
if I could not write the language of my heart
on a page in connected verse of poetry.

“White Christmas” starts to play,
and instantly I am back in time
and I am imagining things that happened
so many years ago –
I remember the snow of my childhood,
I remember the happy times I spent with my family,
I remember imagining that if anybody
were to walk on the surface of the moon again
then of course I would;
I remember seeing true beauty
in fallen snowflakes
and knowing that there was more to me and to life,
and twenty years before I would ever have thought
to write anything that I would now
consider in any way poetic.

One last song plays
before I have to leave the place where I am now;
where I am going next I do not know for sure,
because I do not have a fixed plan –
however, as I think of a title
to sign-off my brand new chain of rhymes,
I decide to use the last words
of the song that I hear…
and as my poem is about the world of today,
about me, and is in itself a snap-shot of life –
this poem is about this moment,
and at this moment it is definitely
Christmas time.

My Poem ‘My Life, My Love’

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

I would wait all day;
I would stay up all night;
I have always known
that I would find you one day,
I have always believed
that I would find
the one who would shine on me
like the sun’s light,
and become my entire life.

No one, nowhere,
could ever compare;
no face, no smile,
could ever be more beautiful;
no other heart, no other spirit,
could ever inspire
as much poetry of one poet;
no beauty, no generosity,
has ever been seen, nor shown,
and no miracle more miraculous
has ever been witnessed or known
by anyone else but me.

Not only do I see you
how you are meant to be seen
and as to me you have always appeared;
not only do I know you
in more ways than anybody else ever has;
not only do I understand you,
and feel what you feel –
but, with all my heart,
I live to save you
from the fall of further tears;
not only do I not doubt
that you and I will be together forever,
but I also can see the future…
and then, just as now,
the entire universe revolves
around the light and love of us.

Everybody needs a reason to live,
and my reason to be is you;
you and I have traveled together hand-in-hand,
and I never want to go anywhere without you;
everybody can look around them,
everybody can look above,
but I am only looking in one direction
because I have never felt so much in love;
I have known since the moment that I met you
that my life would never be the same again –
because you are, and you always will be,
my life, my soul, and the one
whom I will always love.

Happy Birthday Melissa

My Poem ‘Thankful for’

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

As family prepare to gather,
as the sun shines
and the sky is blue –
as someone who is thankful,
as someone who is grateful,
who is both the loved and the lover,
I am thankful in more ways
than I could ever say
to be alive and to be able
to write this for you.

I take lots of time
thinking about the who,
the what, and the when
that have passed by like a river;
I constantly reflect
what I see and what I feel;
I have always considered
golden experiences
as memories to be made
a part of my DNA,
as well as simultaneously
to be remembered;
I have always believed
that no matter where you are in your life,
wherever you are in the world,
that there is always something
that to anybody else would seem small –
but to you that same something is a big deal.

As I have gotten older,
the things that I am thankful for have changed –
but that which matters the most to me
is still the same;
as I have lived, I have slowly come to realize
that life goes by faster than a bullet-train,
and things do sometimes happen
that you should not spend too much time
trying to explain.

Clouds form, rain falls;
colour is painted over the face of the dark;
there is no such thing as an impenetrable wall;
the seafloor, the sands of an island shore,
the photos of now compared to those of before,
that which will be forevermore:
the indescribable, the tangible,
the special, the spiritual –
that which only I will ever truly know –
is what I am the most grateful for;
however, the gift of love
given with all their heart
by the love of my life only to me
is the thing that I am the most fulfilled by
and in my life I am the most thankful for.

My Poem ‘Our Magical Opus’

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

I want to tell you a story,
about a prince of poetry
and a princess of unfathomable beauty…
who met and who fell in love
after being drawn together
and to each other
by their love of music,
who long to live happily ever after
in each others arms as-one
and forever enjoy and revel
in each others’ magic.

There are forces at work all around us;
there are unstoppable alignments at play
like the perfect orbits of planets;
there are electronic, spiritual,
biological, magical opuses;
there are seemingly random fragments
combining and attracting each other like magnets.

That first picture;
that first message;
that first peak under the cover;
that first expression of love;
that first digital kiss;
that first shared dream;
that first face to face;
that first smile that eclipses
all others that you have ever seen;
that first touch;
that first look;
that first first embrace;
that first loss of control
when hands and fingers and lips
come together in a lock.

There are modern day fairy-tales;
there are people who are meant to be
together forever all around the world;
there are stories of synchronicity
that are as beautiful and amazing
and as breathtaking as they are incredible;
there are some fires
that are always meant to burn.

The story of this prince
and this princess…
the story of the American beauty
and the English poet…
the tale of the Englishman
and the American woman
who love one-another
more than they could ever confess…
the tale of the two hearts
who grew up worlds apart,
but who one day found each other
as if discovering a life-changing
and priceless treasure…
is the story of the beautiful destiny
of my angel and I –
that is deeper, richer, and more amazing
than words could ever describe,
because it is the most phenomenal, epic,
unbelievable, poetic and magical opus.

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My Poem ‘GA 30741’

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

Upon first awakening, all is dark
while the air is still warm;
when drifting off to sleep
during the summer-time
is when the lightning bugs glow
in the twilight as they swarm;
when the sun is shining
and the blue sky comes alive,
when you can sit back and take your ease
somewhere peaceful and special,
you feel the most lucky to be where you are,
having the time of your life.

When you see something everyday,
when you live somewhere all your life,
you can easily take something
or somewhere for granted,
when you are happy and content,
the minutes and the hours
can seem to fly away –
however, just as moments come
and they go like a flash of light,
when we all learn to harness
the energy and the feeling of our surroundings
it is then that we can make moments
and memories last forever,
and just like our genetic memory
be forever imprinted.

I have Georgia on my mind;
I have Tennessee in my heart;
I have a pocket of dollars and dimes;
I have the light of an American angel
shining on me like a star;
I have the accents and the voices
that I know so well
echoing through my consciousness
like a choir singing in a church;
I have the distant sight of Lookout Mountain
still fascinating me from afar.

I have walked over old battlefields,
and paid my respects to the lost
at memorials erected to remember the fallen –
those who gave their lives
to preserve the right of everyone
to enjoy the gift of true freedom.

The United States of America
is one country made up of fifty
wonderfully diverse states;
the heart of every American
beats proud and strong;
the United States of America
is a symbol of hope and prosperity
in so many ways;
every state of America
is a piece of an epic
and breathtaking unfinished puzzle –
and, to me, the states of Georgia and Tennessee
symbolize what makes
the United States of America truly great,
and there isn’t a minute that goes by
when I do not think of my home in 30741.

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