hope

My Poem ‘Lucky to be here’

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

Miracles are real.
Survivors are meant to survive.
Some people are strong enough
to withstand the grumbling of a world
without a scratch to feel.

Accidents happen every day in which someone dies;
however, when the same kind of accident reoccurs,
to someone else, they may unbelievably walk away without a scar,
and are able to tell others the tale
of how lucky they are to be alive.

The world can be a dangerous place,
there is no more chaotic and destructive force on Earth
than the Human race;
no one knows why or how long ago
the first domino of serendipity fell,
but the bones, cards, tiles, tickets, and stones,
that connect everything to everything,
still continue to fall,
and who will win at the end of existence’s game
no one can tell.

The reason our solar system formed and emerged
from the gaseous, rocky, and chaotic, cloud,
that orbited around our sun when it was yellow and young,
was not by chance;
the reason that Earth bloomed and became the flower of the planets,
and even gave birth to its own offspring, the moon,
is because the universe itself is in the middle
of a very fast, beautiful, and energetic, dance.

The reason human beings emerged from the ocean,
evolved, multiplied substantially,
and spread themselves around the world,
was because they had to diversify, learn, think, discover, dream,
and want to explore everywhere in order to discover
their defining nature and destiny,
and one day look and travel to the stars above
in order to forge a new link with their celestial cousins;
the reason why we are still here,
the reason why I am writing this,
and the reason you are reading this,
is because it was meant to happen –
and even now, from our actions and choices,
there will be repercussions.

I look up at the duck egg coloured blue sky sometimes,
and I think to myself ‘I have never seen anything more amazing’;
I look out at a sunset at the end of a day,
and I think, sometimes out-loud,
that I have never seen anything more breathtaking and beautiful,
and a sight that is truly worthy of a tear;
I look around at the people in my life,
and I see what connect me and keeps me alive
to enjoy the wonders of everything;
I look at myself, from time to time,
and I remember, as I look into my own eyes,
that I and countless people all around
are here for a reason –
because each of us is incredibly blessed and lucky to be here.

My Poem ‘Did’

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

There is a beautiful sunset outside my window,
I am listening to Ed Sheeran on my iPod at the moment
to give my creative spark the get-up-and-go.

I have been writing since I woke up this morning,
and my right shoulder is literally aching;
I am about to have something to eat,
but I just want to write down in words
the things I am proud of,
and the things I wish I never did.

I am proud of myself
for using my self-taught gift of expression,
and with the help of a great friend of mine
getting two books of my poems published-
the support, the love, the miracle
to be able to share my words with the world,
in the way I always wanted,
is beyond anything that I could ever have wished.

When I was a kid I was a movie-loving boy
who made up his own stories for fun;
now I am a 33 year-old poet,
who still loves films,
and who goes to the cinema as often as I can.
When I was growing up I wanted to be many things
when I eventually became a man;
but now that I am standing tall, and looking back,
I am thinking that my life
might have been easier
if I had had some kind of life-plan;
I thought I would have been married,
and had kids by now-
at least that was my boyhood, adult-arrival, expectation;
however, a few things happened along the way
that were not part of anyone’s plan-
and those are what I see looking back at me
every day in my own reflection.

I hope there comes a day
when I can honestly say
that who I am now is who I want to be;
I hope there is a day when I can say
“this is what I have been dreaming at night about”,
and then waking up and turning it into poetry;
I hope one day I will be able to say to my own kids,
that I don’t regret the things I have done,
and if I had the time to do over again
I would still do all that I did.

My Poem ‘The Phoenix’

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

It was inevitable that it would happen,
it always happens;
it was always going to end and begin again this way;
it was inevitable that I would be burned alive
and come back to life,
because that is the pattern;
it will always be me dying to save myself,
and then rising again from the flames
with the same face, the same name,
the same heart, the same soul,
until it really is my Earth-bound last and final day.

Every time I come back from the dead
I lose nearly everything that I had,
but I do retain every detail of my past lives’ memories;
every time my world crumbles and turns to ash,
I return to the place I know,
the people I love, and the thing that is as a part of me
as I am of it- and that is my notebook and my poetry.

You always think that things will go on forever, until they end;
you always think that people will stay with you, until they leave;
you always think that you will always be someone’s hope,
inspiration, life, love, and best friend;
you always think that you know and have seen everything,
until you learn and you see something that you cannot believe.

My world imploded, and then exploded;
my identity was stripped from me and thrown away;
my life had to crash and then be rebooted;
my past, my present, my future, my horizons,
were all sent into flux, and blown away on the wind,
to be replaced by a blank page, an unknown,
and a feeling of loss and uncertainty.

Where once there was something rich, deep, bright, and hopeful,
there is now nothing to be found;
where once there was fate, destiny, reason,
the answer to everything in the entire universe,
there is now a hole in the shape of something wonderful,
special, and profound.

Night has become day,
day has become night;
everything felt simple,
even when it was vastly complicated in every way-
as long as I kept myself, in part, hidden in the dark
I would always end up turning my face away from the light.

Things ended because I was stupid;
I was ripped apart and burned,
because what happened was too far gone for anyone to fix;
I was everything that I have always hated,
but now I have died, I have been reincarnated,
I have been reconstituted, I have been tested,
I have been regenerated, I have risen again from my own flames,
and I am starting again and fighting my instincts
of continually being the human embodiment
of the mythological bird known as “The Phoenix”.