humanity

My Poem ‘Blind Love’

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

Love is blind…
blind love can be seen,
it can be felt,
it can be experienced,
by people, by animals,
by children, by pets…
someone and something
doesn’t even have to see you
in order for them to love you,
because they can see the real you
without having to use their eyes…
love exists in many forms –
it is bigger, deeper, and more meaningful,
and it can be said and shown
in ways more powerful than language.

If you own a dog, with every lick
that your dog gives you on your face
they are saying “I love you”…
with every look that your dog gives you
they are saying “you are the best thing
in the entire world”…
with every bark that your dog speaks…
with every spin and with every jump
that your dog does, they just want to show you
how much they would do for you…
when your dog protects you
and defends you against anybody and anything
that they think may cause you harm,
they are showing you that actions
do speak louder than words.

True love is unconditional…
real love is unbelievable…
love at first sight is physical,
but it soon becomes emotional
and something much more beautiful…
a love that lasts a life-time
is one that constantly sustains
and rejuvenates itself
by the fact that it feels so natural.

I believe that humanity can learn a lot about love
from observing how we are loved and appreciated
by the animals that we surround ourselves with…
during the early days of human evolution
many ancient cultures revered and worshiped
gods that took the form of animals of every kind…
some animals, in particular, have a reputation
for being a certain way, and by observing
how they act we can decode
what drives the engine of their psyche…
love is there to be found by everyone,
but “real love” should never revolve around
how much money someone has, nor where they are from…
we give our pets names, a home to call their own,
we give them food, water,
and a special place within our family –
and in return, if we treat them
as they are supposed to be treated,
they give us what each and every human being
hopes and prays to find in their life:
real, true, unconditional, magical, blind, love.

My Poem ‘The Meaning’

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

As with most things
it all begins in our eyes
and with what and whom
we see with our eyes…
as with most things
we all come to things,
places, people,
from different directions
and at different times…
as with most things
there are always things
that we regret…
as with most things
a part of something
always remains within
the heart and the soul of something
even after the outer-layers
have withered away and died.

Humanity is fragile…
every day of a person’s life
they are in a constant state of change;
humanity by nature is fallible…
every day of their life
a person can do things
that when looked upon in retrospect
they would see them as a collage of mistakes;
everybody is prone to repetition
and we value our routines;
we are all so caught up in our own lives sometimes
that we are mostly oblivious
to the changing of the times
and the rhythms of life.

A life is full of meaning,
even if you can’t see it:
music, children, love, sport, art,
work can give a person’s life what they need…
no two people live the same life in the same way…
no one and nothing ever stops changing…
what matters the most in life
is what you find in the moments of silence
when there is no sound, music, or talking –
there and then is where you find
what lies within your heart
and what you cannot live without
because of the way that it fills
your life with such meaning.

My Poem ‘All Kinds’

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

It’s nice to find a place
where you feel accepted…
it’s nice to find somewhere
to connect to and to feel connected…
it’s nice to find a place
where you can do anything,
say almost anything,
wear anything without fear
of being judged or isolated…
it’s nice to find somewhere
you can sit down, talk,
listen, work, write, share,
and perhaps even discover
and explore something unexpected.

So many different kinds of people
are drawn and find themselves
in the same place at the same time…
so many people from all walks of life
seemingly-randomly find themselves
interacting with other people every day
who serve as lamp-posts, signposts,
and talismans illuminating the path
that they must follow next…
so many different followers
of so many different ideologies,
customs, beliefs, tastes, and accents
can for a short period find themselves
walking or standing behind one-another
in the same line…
so many different ranges of ages
can find themselves within touching-distance
of those who are at ease with those
who are preoccupied by something on their mind –
and also by those who seemingly are
in their own infinite world of one and many,
but who are also at their best.

There is a reason why some flowers
and some plants need to be planted
in the right soil and in the right Earth
for them to grow and in the way
that they are meant to…
there is a reason why certain places
appeal to some people and not all –
sometimes the place where you want to be
can be somewhere that puts you
in the right place you want to be emotionally,
spiritually, psychologically,
within your own body and mind…
there is a reason why you go to things
and why things come to you…
there is a reason why when daylight
passes through a prism
it scatters into its spectral-components…
humanity, like light, is invisible when seen as-one –
however, when you look closer and deeper
you realize that for the world to be
the way that it is and the way that
it is supposed to be
it takes all kinds.

My Poem ‘Sound of the Silence’

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

Stars, planets, solar-storms, galactic-energy –
every sphere of the universe
produces music from a source within
that keeps them spinning
and generating their unique voice;
artists, composers, song-writers, vocalists –
every living and breathing man and woman
who has ever created something
and who has ever been inspired
to realise their lifes-work
is driven by a silent beating heart
within their chest more powerful
than could ever be imagined;
memories, recollections,
reminders of a time gone by
that just will not die
because they have no choice;
stories, movies, the eclectic soundtrack
of your childhood that is centred around
and continues to orbit
a wormhole of space and time
that continues to broadcast
and influence your life,
your thoughts, and your actions,
every second of every minute.

All hail the music of the silence;
all raise their hands to feel the vibrations
and the beat of something amazing and beautiful;
all hear the sound of the timeless;
all be entranced by the light of the light-house,
and look up in wonder at the sight
of the broken satellite;
all watch the disc of colour spin,
and allow yourself to slip back in time
to the endless summer days of golden sunlight;
all close your eyes and go on a journey
inside your mind and be carried away
by the waves of the universal
energy-current of the universe;
all listen to the crackle of the static
and then fall head-first into the vortex
that spins like an album of vinyl.

To me, silence is just music
that we haven’t yet discovered
how to listen to in the right way;
to me, music in its infinite forms
will always play throughout all eternity –
whether it is heard, or not,
the music of life can never be silenced;
to me, music is one of the only things
that can make you feel at home
as well as take you far away;
to me, all the world is a church of music
and all of humanity are receptors
and worshippers of a divine sound
that is sometimes both powerful and silent –
and that is why I say that we should all
put our hands to our chest
and proclaim with one voice:
all hail the silence.

My Poem ‘God’s work’

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

God works in mysterious ways…
with light came life
at the beginning of the universe…
to god seven billion years
could be the same as seven of our solar days…
life is precious…
god’s creations are now more distant
than they were at the beginning of everything…
everybody on Earth has a role to play
in the grand design that god set forth
before the universe exploded into existence
with the biggest of bangs…
like everything in life
no thing is any-thing without trust…
we may not realize it,
but everything happens for a reason:
accidents happen, mistakes are made –
however, every-thing and everyone
is bound to a master-plan
too unfathomable to anyone but it’s architect;
the universe is complex –
but what else would you expect
from an idea such as the universe,
literally the most divine garden
of limitless, beautiful, and varied
example of life ever imagined:
what gift, what blessing,
what answer hidden in plain-sight
within a question being asked
could be more perfect?

Two worlds are never the same;
two lives, though seemingly-close,
always live on either-side of a divide;
the two eyes of someone’s face
is like the light of the stars
that we see sparkling from afar
in the vast darkness of space;
the two ears, the two lungs,
the two arms, the two hands,
the two legs, the two feet that many,
however not all, are born with –
the signature physical characteristics
of the human body remind us all
that we are still all of one world,
one Earth, and one of a kind.

We all come to a belief in something
from different directions;
for some, the path to the truth of what life is
can be short, it can be long, it can be easy,
and sometimes it can be incredibly hard;
there are people who believe
in many things in this life –
and when they say that they believe in something,
or someone, I know and I believe
that they are telling the truth with every word;
we all come face-to-face with things in our lives
that we can’t understand –
sometimes the journey to find the answers you seek
cannot simply be reached by driving somewhere in a car;
the human heart, the human soul, the human consciousness,
the human dreams, are all keys to the door
that lead to the gates of heaven –
and I believe that each and every one of us,
no matter how big or how small we believe we are
in the cosmic jig-saw of life
can make no mistake in believing
that we are all doing god’s work.

My Poem ‘Fallen Angel’

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

It’s happened again.
Why has it happened again?
Tomorrow it will happen.
Next week it will happen.
A hundred years ago it happened.
When will it stop?
When will our race stop killing itself.
There are cancers and viruses and infections
that kill people everyday –
humanity should not have to worry
about one of its own kind
being bad for their health.
But it happens everyday.
People not only die, they are killed.
People not only do not get to live a full-life,
but in most cases they don’t even get the chance
to say goodbye.
It’s horrifying. It feels like it should be inhuman.
It’s almost soul-destroying.
No one should have to worry
about not returning home again
when they walk out the door in the morning.
And yet, most of the time,
it is what, or someone, who you don’t know
who is thinking about themselves
and what they believe –
which means more to them
than the life of someone else –
who decides which day will be your last day
to be blessed by the light of the sun.

I always only want to see
the positive in something or someone;
I always only want to think
that every-thing happens for a reason;
I always only want to see hope and not fear –
however, there are some days
when the worst things happen,
even to someone you do not know,
when the best and the only response
you can possibly give
is one that is expressed with words and in tears.

Why do good people have to die?
Why can’t it be the worst of humanity
who are exterminated from the face of the Earth –
like the cockroaches and the parasites that they are?
Why must some lives only be a short life?
Deaths happen when people are fighting in a battle –
but the majority of people in the world
are not and do not want
to find themselves in the middle of a war.

It is sad to see and to hear
that there are still people in the world
who do not understand how precious life is;
it is heart-breaking that in this day and age
that people still do not realize
that differences are a good thing,
and that with understanding can follow
the most incredible wave of love;
it is such a shame that people
are still being exposed to such horror
the like of which completely eclipses
the scary-stories that we remember
being told when we were kids;
I hope that one day humanity will evolve
beyond how we are now
and that there will be a day
when we will no longer have to mourn
the untimely passing and the slaying
of a fallen angel.

My Poem ‘In memory of’

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

One of the greatest things
you can do is remember;
one of the most touching things
you can do is to not forget;
one of the things that grounds us the most
is a memory that holds us in place
so that we don’t drift away –
some memories are like anchors;
one of the things that has stood the test of time
still remains the greatest archive
that could ever be envisioned…
and that place is a world,
and that world is our beautiful planet.

The lands of every country on Earth
are speckled with the graves
and the monuments of the lost and the fallen;
every society and every religion
remembers their people in different ways;
perhaps one day the only thing
that will remain of humanity on Earth
will be which still remains
engraved on worn-out vertical tablets –
electronically? solar-powered?
Or, perhaps, on good old-fashioned
marble and stone?

Humanity has changed and continues to change;
mankind is moving forwards,
but still continues to remember
and embalm that which to them is sacred;
humanity has the means to be
at-peace the world-over,
however some cannot live
unless there is a fight to be fought
and a war to be waged;
mankind can only be blamed
for what it has done and for what it still does –
every-body has to sleep
in the bed that we all make.

In my time here on Earth,
I have learned that some things
can be put off until tomorrow –
however, the most important things,
the people who we love and who love us,
should never be side-lined,
nor ever ignored;
I have learned more than once
throughout my life that, no matter what,
each and every one of us in our lives will be hurt –
however, that which becomes a part of us
we were gifted with so that when we need it
we can draw on something as powerful as a memory
to pick us up off the floor;
as I have lived, learned,
and occasionally lost,
I have slowly understood life more –
and I understand why there needs to be a hell below
just as there needs to be a heaven above;
I, personally, hold on with all that I am
every day to my memories
that I still return to when necessary…
when I need to leave my own monument
which is always anchored to the place,
or to the person, where, or to whom,
it was created in memory of.

My Poem ‘I am’

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

Words are powerful;
song and prayer elevate the words
from a book and give them new life;
words are what makes something
more amazing and more magical;
when spoken from the heart
and with a true explosion
of passion and feeling
words and language become spirit and light –
they become energy,
and even on a cloudy day
can make the world shiny and bright.

The divine is always listening;
there are angels in every place on Earth
constantly waiting;
the creator of all is always creating;
there is a voice that is constantly speaking.

None of us is every truly alone;
the one true believer walks among us
and does not rule in heaven
on top of a throne;
some people in need find asking for help
the hardest thing in the entire world;
every day the barriers and the borders
of both heaven and hell become blurred
with those that they share
with our world here on Earth.

When the light of creation first shone
upon the face of the Earth
that for the longest time
had been veiled in shadow…
when God gave humanity their chance
to be fruitful in the universe’ after-glow…
when the first words were spoken
and their meaning and their message
grew and spread like the vines of a rain-forest…
when the almighty blessed everyone
with the gift of choice…
everything and everybody became the variables,
the equations, the questions,
as well as the answers,
to the most epic of tests.

I believe that when the universe sparked into being,
when the first stars were born,
when the first galaxies were formed,
when the first planets gave rise
to the first intelligent minds
and to the first open eyes
who were able to see and understand
what language is and what some words truly mean…
with that birth of consciousness
followed something…
and every day, on every planet,
the lord of heaven tells us all in our own way
that even though they are the creator
and the way of all,
each of us are meant to find
our own way in our own time,
and no matter what
know how lucky we are
to have been given the life that we know –
and through Him, I know that I am.

My Poem ‘Celestial’

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

We all wonder
when we look up to the sky
what the veil of black or blue
obscures from view –
whether it is in fact above
that we all go to when we die,
and why it is that a burst of light
and energy from the sun
can have the effect that it does
of making us all feel brand new.

If music is the heart-beat
of everything in the universe,
then poetry in the genetic code
that binds all life together;
if light is the way
that the true beauty of the universe
comes to life,
then love is the dream come true
that we all want to live in a state of forever;
if memory is the way that we can all
travel through time,
then the future is a present
that we haven’t yet unwrapped;
if life is about sharing everything
and is about understanding one-another,
then we can all learn again
to live in harmony with every-thing and everybody –
just as all life once did when the things we did,
the things we said, and the things we built
were made to last.

Every sense, every sensation,
every lens, every emotion
of every miracle of creation,
is more detailed and deeper,
and is yet to be fully revealed
and realized by the celestial secrets’ keeper –
however, even though I believe
that humanity is not yet ready
to know all that there is to know,
I believe that there is life out there
who realized and who discovered
the reason for all things to be
as they are and what they are
not long after the universe was born –
before humanity,
or the sun in the sky, for that matter,
were even the twinkle of a star
in any constellation of light in the dark.

Travelers and explorers of space,
singers and players of an opus,
emissaries and examples of an entire race –
each and every one of us
is meant to be different from one-another;
both drivers and passengers of our own destiny,
each and every individual with a consciousness
and a face that has ever expressed
a feeling from within
that there was more to be found
beyond the four walls of their day-to-day world;
everyone who has ever believed
that they have seen, met, and have been touched
by the divine whom they might think of as an angel,
knows more than they might realize –
and no matter where they come from,
and around what star they start out orbiting…
everyone is a child of life,
and just like a light of heaven,
timeless, unique, and celestial.

My Poem ‘The Confidence of Man’

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

Everything needs a centre;
everyone needs a soul;
every world revolves around
a deep and distant light
that calls towards
what lies at their core;
everything in life
plays its essential role.

Having faith and holding-on to faith,
especially in people,
can be testing sometimes
on so many levels;
even God once questioned his own actions
in creating humanity,
according to Genesis in The Bible,
and sort to start anew
with a world-wide flood
after he was disappointed
that Adam and Eve disobeyed him
and listened instead to the words
of a serpent devil.

The entire history of Earth,
and the history of the human race,
is filled with tests of character,
spirit, and heart;
since the beginning of time,
life and light,
the entire universe has been a balance
of the Alpha and the Omega –
the first and the last;
even if your first attempt at something
is a failure and it does not resemble
the original blue-print that you had in mind,
it does not mean that the next time you try
to capture the lightning of an idea again
and bring it to life
it will not be better than you imagined,
and perhaps was always meant
to have not worked out the first time around
because it needed an additional surge
of energy and determination
so as to give it a new lease of life.

There is no such thing as failure,
there are only stepping stones
to the other side of a river;
there is no such thing as the wrong way to walk,
there is only going forwards or going backwards;
there is no such thing as bad timing,
because all that is meant to happen and when
will happen no matter what –
and whether you stand still, or not,
the Earth will keep spinning.

Life is about lying down
and then getting back up stronger than ever;
weaved into the very fabric
of the reality of the world,
there is a beginning, an end,
a meaning, and a plan;
life is meant to be shared
and lived together;
though we all may be imperfect
when we compare ourselves to other people,
the majority of humanity is,
in my humble opinion,
perfect in their imperfectness –
and just as no two people
were ever born to be exactly the same as each other,
to me it would be a failure in and of itself
to ever doubt or lose any kind of confidence
in any woman or any man.