inspiration

My Poem ‘Ruminant’

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

A deer walking through a green wood;
a horse galloping across
a beautiful open expanse;
an eagle soaring and gliding
through the air above a vast herd of buffalo;
an adventurer trekking through a jungle,
with a pack full of all that they need
to survive in the wild,
as the raindrops fall on them
and down the lip of their coat’s hood;
a small dog resting outside in the sun
in their favorite spot,
with a look about them
that says that they are feeling
inconceivable emotions of happiness;
a writer writing
while listening to their muse of music,
writing rhymes as if each word
had its own distinctive sound to them,
that sound like
that of the notes of a musical instrument.

As with everything that is made up of
and from the combination of many ingredients,
all things must ruminate and coalesce
and be infused naturally over time
by the mixture of nature and identity;
just as the present is an echo of the past,
as well as a prelude for the future,
some things must always stay the same,
and if necessary thrive on being different –
because in life strict conformity
can be the true enemy.

Inspirational people
have taken countless people
on journeys throughout history,
and the stories of their deeds
have long out-lived them
and are read and retold every day
to a whole new generation
of free-thinking and inquisitive people
looking for answers to life’s questions,
far and wide;
writers, artists, musicians,
have been struck by instant and deep inspiration
while staring at a flower swaying in the breeze;
children have been recognized for being special
because they chose to work hard
and dig deep and go that extra mile;
animals are sometimes revered for being exceptional
because they represent and they talk
to the needs that we all feel
for contentment and connection
with our surroundings
based on our ever-present instincts.

When I truly allow my thoughts
to flow and to float,
they are like a big fluffy cloud in a blue sky;
when I truly open up
and let my feelings bubble up,
they can sometimes spread
like the waters of a flood;
when I truly focus on the journey,
and not the end, I believe and I know
that life for us all goes on,
even after we die;
when I truly live and breathe
every second of the one that I love,
I feel things that almost defy description
and definition – as if I were
a part of an infinite, amazing,
cosmologically-vast and meaningful meditation.

My Poem ‘Seasoned’

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

Like the trees of an old forest,
like the face of an old man,
like the smell of an old leather jacket,
like an old song that always making
new fans of its artist or band,
I feel both young and full of life
and yet mindful and seasoned;
life has been inspiring me
since I was a child,
but now I understand
that for everything to be
there must be a reason.

When I was a child
my imagination was always my super-power;
making my dreams a reality
have gotten easier
as I have got older;
when I first began making art as a boy
my head and my heart
knew even then that
being an artist was going to be
my life-long forte:
I remember spending hours
drawing and painting
and loving every moment
that I spent making
and creating something new every day.

Art has always been a fascination
and a passion for me;
stories have always been to me
the greatest of escapes;
I have done so much,
I have thought so much,
I remember so much –
however, sometimes my memory does
on occasion compartmentalize;
I truly do not ever forget a thing,
but I admit that there are times
when I lack the gift of instant-recall –
you could say that I have a photographic memory,
but that it takes a certain stimuli
to bring back to mind
what I heard with my ears
and what I saw with my eyes.

My family has always held on to everything,
the thought of throwing anything useful
or something draped in memories away is alien to us;
I have learned over time
that everyone at times must refocus;
my family has had so much happen to it –
if most of what we had all been through
were written down one day
it would definitely be a best-seller;
like everyone, I am guilty of making mistakes
from time to time –
however, I try to not make the same mistake twice
and I endeavour always to be a fast-learner.

Everyone has a passion –
music, literature, movies,
games, traveling, dancing,
performing, chilling, cooking,
shopping, writing, photographing,
caring about the well-fair
of another living thing –
and for that passion they would do anything;
everybody has dreamed
that they could do something fantastic
and everybody is able and are capable
of performing a miracle for someone else
in their life more than once;
everyone should always be looking,
seeing, listening, hearing;
everybody should embrace time,
not fear its passing in the slightest –
because with time comes many amazing things
that can only be fully experienced
and appreciated by someone
who is seasoned.

My Poem ‘Stimulus’

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

It’s amazing how incredible
love and light can make you feel;
it’s unbelievable how fantastic
the thought of being with someone
can make the world feel truly real;
it’s breathtaking to realize
where a genuine and involuntary
choice has taken you;
it’s good sometimes to think before you act,
because everything that we do creates an echo
that always comes back to you.

There is no one alive
who does not wear a scar or two,
however some people’s scars
are more prominent than others;
just because someone is scarred
doesn’t mean that they aren’t beautiful;
if someone truly loves you
then when they look at you
any imperfections that you may see
when you look at yourself in the mirror
they will not and cannot ever see,
because to them you mean more than anything,
and what makes you who you are
is their timeless and ever-lasting forever.

The people who love every second
of being with the one that they love
do not need anyone to tell them
how they feel about that perfect and amazing person,
because their feelings are not only deep
but they are also as clear as the smile on their face;
the people who listen to music,
and the people who go to concerts,
where every word and every sound
reverberates into a person’s soul,
know that there are things in life
that are so important to them –
however sometimes they are the only one
who knows why and what they mean;
the people who live every day
waiting for their one true love’s kiss
know that some things are hard to put into words,
because their power and their influence
is the most phenomenal of all stimulus.

My Poem ‘Psyched’

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

Every morning is a new beginning;
every time we open our eyes
we see something we have never seen before;
every time something opens our eyes wide
we all experience a sensation
that feels to us as if we are falling;
every night just before we fall asleep
every one of us psychs ourselves up
for the day that is to come –
and just as when we are a child,
the first steps that we take of anything
are as important and are as essential
as finding your balance and then walking,
or making sound and saying words
that will form the basis of talking
and sharing what you are thinking.

Whenever each of us has a task to perform,
or a thing that we must do,
each of us has to build up some kind of momentum
before we can truly move;
whenever an artist looks in front of themselves
and they see the space of a blank page,
each and every artist needs to see
an imaginary picture so that they have a guide
to follow, or the outlines of something
in between which they can colour in
with their own emotion
and individual experience colour palette
that they have been mixing together
successfully their entire lives
every single day.

Just as every artist needs a muse to inspire them,
everybody needs something or someone
to get up for and to keep them going;
just as every day, in a way,
everybody has to start again,
sometimes you just have to act on instinct
and use the power of your muscle memory
to see you through something
without any unnecessary deep-thinking.

Days must end so that others may dawn;
we all must go through darkness
so that we can appreciate the light of life;
close one door behind you
as you open another exciting new door –
and as you do, leave signposts
and suggestions for others that may follow behind you
so that you can teach what you have learned
and all that you have been taught.

For anything that you may face,
for everything that you have got to do –
do what you would do
if you had to make a high-dive:
close your eyes; take a breath;
imagine the splash,
not the jump or the fall;
and smile your widest smile
to get yourself truly psyched.

My Poem ‘Guardian Angel’

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

Your guardian angel,
your true soul-mate,
the most beautiful,
the greatest of the great;
your loving, sharing,
caring, best friend,
your inspiration, your hero,
the path with whom that has no end;
the person for whom
your love you can’t ever not show.

You cannot always see them,
but they are always there;
you cannot always hear them,
but it is to your picture
that they always stare;
you cannot always be with them,
but they are always thinking about you;
you cannot always put into words
how much they mean to you –
however, you can always guarantee
that the feeling is beautifully mutual.

The poetry that they write
is the life and soul of their heart;
wherever they are, whatever they are doing,
a part of them and you
are creating invisible
timeless masterpieces of art;
the hopes and dreams that you share
make each of you who you are;
the light that shines
when you both combine
is brighter than any star.

Sometimes the less you say
the more you say;
sometimes the most beautiful flower in the world
grows in the wildest of gardens;
the most priceless jewel in the world
can only be found
and it cannot so easily be given away;
those who save us every day
are the angels that walk the Earth
and are a part of our lives,
and they are our eternal and loving guardians.

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My Poem ‘The Doctor’

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

To be a doctor,
to be a healer,
to be a person of wisdom,
to be able to prescribe
and administer
a life-changing prescription,
has been a fantasy
and a dream of mine since I was young;
to be someone with a gift
to be able to make someone better,
to be able to make someone’s life brighter,
to be somewhere and bring everyone together,
to be a source of truth and inspiration,
while still being able to move
as if without any fear of anything
as light as a feather…

When you are a doctor of anything
you are an expert in and of and with
a specific field of expertise;
when you hear that unmistakable calling,
and when you make and you take
the most important oath
that you may ever take in your life,
it is like finding inner-peace;
when you see an injustice, an open-wound,
a problem that you look at
and instantly feel within your heart
that you may hold the cure and the solution
to make things again as they should be;
when, and if, you are the only hope
in any situation, if you are like me
then you would always choose to step forward
and race towards where you are needed the most
to help those whom are the most in need.

Healing can come in many forms;
wisdom can be heard and shown in many ways;
inspiration can be like a flash of golden light at dawn;
it could be anybody,
it could be anywhere
when that special somebody may appear
right in front of you to save the day.

Lives can be saved with care and attention;
help can be given
if you let the right person in at the right time
when they come knocking at your door;
to save one person or a hundred people
might be your life’s mission;
being there, caring;
knowing who you are;
believing that you have and are
carrying out a destiny
that is life-fulling and uplifting
is when you know that every part of you
is meant to be a doctor.

My Poem ‘Many voices inside the one’

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

Daylight is a flash of many colours;
day life is a mass of many choices;
just as a skyscraper
is a single building of many floors,
the light and the dark of the world
can only stay in balance with one another
if there is always a way and a forum
to speak, to sing, and to shout
with the tongue of many voices.

People learn more in the years
that they are a child
than they will ever learn
in the subsequent decades
that they are alive;
a child could literally grow up
to be anybody that they want;
someone who feels inspiration,
as well as sees inspiration,
in themselves and of themselves,
will be an inspiring bright light;
do not ever believe anyone
who tells you that lightning
cannot strike twice;
the people who truly lead the dance of life
do not always do so front the front.

A building must be built;
a person must grow;
every sword must have a hilt;
there must always be something
that you do not know;
a painting must be painted;
a movie must be written, acted,
filmed, edited, orchestrated, and directed;
music must be a conduit of many hearts;
to be funny, a joke –
no matter how many times it is told –
must always be one that makes everybody laugh.

Nobody can ever choose where,
nor to whom, they are born to –
however, if the history of humanity
can teach is anything
it is that birthplace and parentage
are the place, and they are the people,
from where our lives begin,
but they will never be,
nor should they ever be,
where or why our lives come to an end;
throughout our lives,
the voice that we talk and communicate with
changes depending on our ever-changing environment –
like the skin of a chameleon;
we are all somebody of many voices,
not just the one.

My Poem ‘The Light of Me’

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

The light of my eyes,
the light in my heart,
the light in my mind,
the light of my soul,
the words of my poetry,
the beautiful perfection of my muse,
the hope that I feel and see,
the rhyme, the reason,
the redemption, the revelation,
for everything that I do;
the way that I write;
the way that I walk;
the voice that is all mine;
the phenomenal and the inspiring
answer that always returns my call.

When I first began writing,
I knew that I had found my path;
when I first sat down
to write that very first verse,
it felt so natural,
and yet I was nervous;
when I first discovered
that I had something inside me
that could touch the heart of someone else,
it only made me want to feel,
think, and write more and more –
I knew that my first poem
would not and could not be my last;
when I first opened my heart
and I saw my words come to life
and grow one by one
until they become a poem
and a part of me that I loved,
I knew that my instinct
for seeing the hopeful and the good
in almost every and any situation
was one that, above every other,
I should listen to and trust.

As soon as I knew that I was a poet,
at that instant my entire world changed –
it was a perfect moment
when everything fell into place,
it was a time in and of my life
that I will never forget;
it might sound silly,
but I did not know what to do –
I did not question
my newly discovered super-power,
however it was like starting a journey
to somewhere and to something
that was to me beautifully brand new.

My thoughts changed, my feelings changed,
and I felt like a new man;
I met new people, I made new friends,
and I felt like I now had the happy thought
that would allow me to fly
with joy and excitement, like Peter Pan.
The universe opened up like a natural history book,
and so many details and secrets
that I had missed before about the world
started to pop up;
people started to speak to me
and say so much to me
with the power of a single look;
my dreams became epic adventures;
my experiences felt more profound
and worthy of being shared in poetry;
my creativity was met with love
and gratitude which alleviated
any and all of my fears;
my entire life as poet began
when I looked into a mirror,
and I saw looking back at me
was who I really was,
and what I saw was the light of me.

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My Poem ‘Art & Soul’

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

Art is personal;
art is an expression of heart;
art is life’s missing parts;
art is the signature,
the fingerprint,
the indelible footprint,
of our soul.


To me, an artist is a magician of colour
who understands the deep emotional connections
that are ever-present throughout life;
to me, a piece of art is like a timeless child;
to me, an artist is a wizard of light;
to me, art should be seen, embraced, felt,
and it should call to you –
like the roar of a lion in the wild.


The epic mountains, the vast valleys,
the beautiful shores and seafloors of Earth,
are like a piece of one of a kind
natural sculpture –
and the time that was taken
to create and sculpt such masterpieces
was worth every second of every century;
the art painted on every cave
that still remains, and will always remain,
on the cave walls on which they were painted
are landmarks of human evolution
and creativity that are more extraordinary
than words could ever describe –
because, to me, they are proof
that not only were our ancestors
masters of hunting, gathering, and surviving,
but that they were also communicators,
dreamers and thinkers,
and curators of compelling
and powerfully evocative artistry.


Art has been a love of mine since I was a child;
even at a young age, expressing myself
with pencils, pens, colour, and paint,
was my way of letting my imagination go wild;
artists, to me, as a child, were like lords of time
who could capture a moment at its most inspiring
on a canvas that was always deeper
than it appears when seen from the side;
the moment that I first saw
Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’,
I looked into her eyes
and I instantly started to smile.

Whenever I go to an art gallery, or art exhibition;
whenever I look to the landscape of the horizon,
at any time of the day, no matter where I am,
I see art that is beautiful;
whenever I see something artistic
that somebody has made and created,
everything about me vigorously vibrates
with voracious energy and inspiration;
whenever I see art –
be it a Michelangelo, an Andy Warhol,
a vace of Sunflowers or a Starry Night
by Vincent can Gogh –
I want to make my own art
and express the emotions that I feel
about what I see, in words of poetry
from my heart of art and soul.



					

		
		
	




			
				


	

		

					
My Poem ‘The Outer Limits’

								

								 Mark Hastings
															Poetry					
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Ever since the first astronomers of Earth

looked up at the sky to the stars and the planets,

humanity has been asking questions of themselves

about their relevance and about just how rare

and important they are within the universe;

humanity has been searching the galaxy and beyond

for a signal from another galactic inhabitant,

and even to this day there are those

who openly proclaim that because we have not yet

made contact with another form of intelligent life

in the Milky Way that we are the superior species

to be found anywhere, and that Earth is and could only be

the only inhabited world.

When I look above, I can almost hear the call

of a fellow interstellar searcher

and the beating heart of a fellow poet of the stars

being inspired by their muse

and taken away in mind, spirit, and soul,

to their imagination outer-limit.


We here on Earth know only too well

that feeling of awe and intrigue

that we feel when we see photographs

being returned to Earth from man-made probes

of distant worlds – that we have all known about

and heard about, but which have never been seen before;

we all experience sheer breathtaking amazement

whenever something happens above us and around us

that may only happen once in a lifetime;

when we watch a rocket launch,

or when we witness the first footsteps

and impressions made by someone or something

on an unknown and undiscovered brand new land,

we all return to the memory of when we were a child

making an airplane out of folded paper

and watching it be carried on the wind, and sour;

we, I, always go ten steps beyond

when the thought of what and who could be out there,

in the dark, on their own planet, imagining us,

as we imagine them, and what just the knowledge

of each others’ existence would mean

and would do to the thoughts

and to the dreams of the others’ mind.


Every form of life is special and unique;

every planet orbiting around every star

is like the integral and unmissable

musical notes of a galactic symphony

that have their own vibration and sound to them,

that when heard playing with the rest

of the interstellar musical instruments and keys,

as well as on their own, sound nothing short of perfect;

everything that happens in space

is always a spectacle to us all here on Earth,

even if it is the sight of a fly-by by a passing comet.


Being a poet, I naturally look at life

and the universe slightly differently

to how someone else might see it –

however, I believe that everyone can see

inspiring wonders and they can be inspired

to take a trip of discovery

into an exciting new frontier,

and explore the amazing mysteries and questions

that drive us all when and if

we choose to step into the realm

of the outer limits.