inspiration

My Poem ‘The Lightning Conductor’

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

Life is an epic symphony…
life has a melody and a rhythm,
and a reason to be…
life is a series of rises and falls…
life has an air to it –
sometimes there is blue-sky and sunshine,
sometimes there are clouds, rain, thunder-storms…
life, in all its forms, is a work-in-progress
masterpiece, written, imagined, interpreted,
and conducted by a thunderous
and powerful conductor.

All things were created to work
in-concert with one-another –
but sometimes what that means
and how to put that message into practice
is interpreted in many different ways,
by many different people all over the world,
and it has been for all the centuries
of human existence;
everybody and every-one
are all individual players
of the same orchestra –
each playing their individual instruments
that they are gifted to play
and are destined to use
to both speak and listen;
all music has a composer –
it is not accidental that a musician
comes up with a sound, brings it to life,
and then they play it for all the world to hear;
every artist gifted in imagining inspiration,
visually or in an auditory-form,
is doing something that when it reaches
its true-potential can leave somebody
breathless, speechless,
captivated, and in-awe.

It was once thought that only the gods
of myth and legend could call-upon
and harness the forces of nature
and bend them to their will –
however, in my experience,
there are more forces of nature
than most people can name,
because in times gone by
“magic” was the word used
to describe some of these forces,
because they do not conform
with nature’s laws;
I am here to set the record straight,
and to say that lightning, energy,
sunlight, electricity, inspiration,
is not just a gift sent to us from the heavens –
I know this, because I feel, I touch, I live,
I interpret, I thrive, and I am kept alive
by a life-force that instantly strikes me
over and over again,
and every time it changes me a little,
and when it does I conduct my own movements
and I give others a reason to go on a journey
that they may never have thought to take before…
as I compose my own music,
while playing the music of the divine maestro,
and while being conducted
by life’s lightning conductor.

My Poem ‘Echoes’

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

When I turn the other way,
I hear the sound of echoes
that are following me;
when I open up my heart,
I breath in and I breath out
the essence of divine poetry;
when I look to the sky above,
I hear the song of stars
that are hidden from view;
when I touch the Earth below,
I feel the rhythm of life
that feeds the trees
and makes the flowers bloom.

When I close my eyes at night,
I go to a place that calls to me;
when I reach beyond my grasp,
I touch the face of infinite beauty;
when I see the light of day,
I feel the gift of god within;
when I walk through the rain,
I feel the drops of purity upon my skin;
when I fly above the clouds,
I see the playground where the angels dwell;
when I dream of heaven’s gates,
I wonder if I will be welcomed one day
within open-arms or by the sound of a bell.

When I wake up every day,
I know that I am here
for a reason that I do not yet know;
when I see the lightning in the sky,
when I feel the static in the air,
when I hear the sound of thunder,
I reach up my hands
to catch the bolts of electricity,
and I live every moment after
addicted to the echoes.

My Poem ‘Poetic Mead’

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

Poetry…
the sun is shining,
I am waiting for the world to inspire to me…
there is a fire burning inside me…
the air outside is cold,
but it doesn’t bother me…
I am like a bird flying high and free…
I am finding truth in every mythology…
I write what comes to me…
when I write I sometimes like
to go to places I have never been
and live dangerously…
to me, possibility is the lock
and imagination is the key…
I rise my pen to the sky
and I wait for the lightning to strike
like Thor’s hammer and empower me…
what I do was once hard,
but now it comes naturally…
every day is a chapter in my life-long story…
I will be writing and dreaming
until the end of my life and until my last heart-beat…
I am constantly creating new tales in my mind
even when I am sound asleep…
when I can walk the Earth and see its true beauty
I see and I feel things that to others
might seem small and insignificant –
but it is the briefest of moments in a given day
that mean the most to me…
giving people hope in any way
is somewhat of an obsession for me…
I get great joy from creating
and from leaving a legacy of words
for others to follow behind me…
actions and thoughts creates ripples in reality…
believe in whatever makes you happy…
follow my lead and make an offering
to the gods whose tales live on
and have traveled to the sky above,
over land, and even below the sea…
make a toast to the Norse god Odin,
the god of poetry…
take a seat, and help yourself to some poetic mead.

My Poem ‘The Preacher up on the Mountain’

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

The father, the son, the messenger,
the preacher of the word of God…
the man of faith, the man of belief,
the man of love, the man of heart,
the man of song…
when they speak, when they sing,
all who hear their voice
feel their words deep within their soul
and their presence feels like
the lord-himself is speaking
to you through him…
when you are in their church,
when you are one of their congregation,
you can feel the strength of their spirit,
and you feel instantly drawn to them…
the preacher brings the words of the bible to life…
the holy man knows the true meaning of keeping faith
that God loves his children
and that he believes in them more
than they could ever know…
the man who built his own church
and who created a holy place for his family
and for all to worship in
will always be special in the eyes of God,
of Jesus Christ, and in the eyes of those
who they have shepherded throughout their life…
god bless the preacher up on the mountain.

My Poem ‘Background Artist’

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

I am in the foreground of every landscape…
I am in the background of every picture…
I am in the orchestra that plays
the music of the spheres throughout interstellar-space…
I am interwoven into the language of the universe –
and yet too few ever see me…
not everyone knows how to look me in the eye…
not everyone can read the true meaning of my poetry…
no one knows what I have seen,
where I have been,
and what I have done already in my life.

There is only so much you can say with words…
there is only so many colours of a palette to paint with…
there is only so many moments in this world…
there is only so much you can give –
unless you know what to say and how to say it,
and you are in one of the places in the world
where language becomes as transformative as magic…
timing is everything – however,
if you know what, where, and how to say,
see, hear, and feel everything,
then you can realize anything into being.

A thing’s most defining feature lies just out of sight…
life’s most hidden mysteries
are only a blink away from being seen…
the content of a person’s heart and their soul
echoes around them and casts a shadow behind them
when they are standing in front of a bright light…
a dream can be a reality, just as reality can be a dream.

Doors rarely open for long…
opportunities sometimes only knock once…
bursts of inspiration can be so short…
time does not wait for us to catch up to it…
the world turns without pause –
but if we can find a place of peace and belonging
wherever we are, then we can never be lost…
there is something to be found, even in an empty room…
if we just learn to hold on to hope
and use what power and energy is has
then things have a way of jumping out at us,
like a baby deer running through a forest…
what you see is just one dimension of the whole…
just behind who and what you see,
I am standing there, looking, smiling,
imagining, writing, inspiring from afar…
I am constantly seen, and then missed –
but I am always where I am supposed to be,
doing what I was born to do:
an optimistic, poetic, omnipresent,
background artist.

My Poem ‘Catching my breath’

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

The world is a crazy place,
sometimes I wish I could
transport myself high-above
and see the world
as an astronaut in orbit does –
beautiful and glowing green and blue
against the black backdrop of space…
sometimes, especially in a busy city,
it is hard to find an oasis of peace –
somewhere to go to get away
from the constant bombardment of sound,
somewhere wide-open:
like a park, or a forest of trees,
that you can walk through,
where you can smile to yourself
and close your eyes at the miracle
of being able to take your ease…
sometimes you just want to sit back and relax
and let the minutes and the hours stretch out
until you can’t tell them apart…
sometimes just owning a moment,
and swimming out into a metaphorical
subconscious-ocean, is just what you need –
you could simply just get your feet wet
by imagining you are sitting on a wooden boat-dock
and looking down at your own reflection in the rippling water,
or perhaps diving down to see
the coral-reef of your imagination
and then resurfacing with your head above water again
and realizing that you have traveled far.

We all need that place…
we all need that world within our world…
we all need to travel in different ways…
we all need a language that we know and understand:
art, music, sound, touch, a look, a smile –
finding the right words to say at the right time
is like completing a cosmic word-search.

We are all lighthouses guiding the way…
we are all sunrises and sunsets
to significant other people in a myriad of ways…
we are all messages in bottles
riding the world’s waves…
we are all looking at someone
and are being looked back on
by someone with a different face –
we are all both the observer
and the observed, you could say.

Inspiration does not always flow
as easily as water from a tap…
you could sit down and want something
to come to you and there is nothing there…
and then… zap! you get struck by something,
like a bolt of lightning,
and your eyes widen, your heart races,
and you create and you make something
that did not exist before,
and the energy and the art flows,
and you take a journey with it
all the way until it is something to you
that you would think of as if it were a new friend –
that is when you stop and you sit back
and you find and you finally feel
your heart-beats start to slow,
and you smile with joy,
as you put your hand up to your chest,
as you catch your breath.

My Poem ‘Where do you go?’

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

Where do you go
in a moment of silence?
Where do you go
to find yourself?
Where do you go
when people see you
looking off into space?
Where do you go
to feel safe and sound?

To some people, music is a place –
a world which they visit every day
that makes them happy
and which inspires them to create
a work of art that becomes so real to them
that can no longer be bound
solely within their mind;
to some people, their imagination
is like an ocean of fantastic
and mysterious discoveries
to be found every time they choose to dive;
to some people, everything that they see
is like a strand of inspiration
which they cannot help themselves
from pulling and seeing what follows;
to some people, it is a castle,
it is a kingdom, it is a reality,
it is a place built by them,
but influenced by many different things
that they retreat to –
and sometimes what is going on
on the outside, in someone’s life,
has a dramatic bearing
on the destination and the colour-palette
of the place within where they go.

Some people revisit the past…
some people imagine the future…
some people slow down their life
as the world around them races by too fast…
some people hold-on to hope with all that they have,
while others worry too much
and are incarcerated and paralyzed by their fears.

To day-dream is an amazing thing;
to be preoccupied by something on your mind is natural;
to realize a dream-come-true
sometimes you have to let your guard down
and lower your defenses so that your voice can sing;
to overcome something, which to you at the time
feels impossible, is incredible –
our limitations are ussually those of our own making,
and to truly turn your life around and be content
you have to sometimes drown-out the voices of doubt
and paint the picture that you want to see.

Walking through nature
is a great way to open doors in your mind
to new and undiscovered frontiers
that are just waiting to be created and unveiled;
when your attention is completely focused on something
it is like being on a one-way highway
with no way to go but straight-ahead;
saving some time for what you love
and for what makes you smile,
no matter what other people may say or think,
is more important than you could know;
everybody must have a sanctuary…
everybody must have a place of peace…
doing something, doing nothing in particular…
everybody must take a moment of time,
make it last, and make the most of it –
because time is as unique
and precious as a snowflake…
so, my question to you is:
where do you go?

My Poem ‘Torchbearer’

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

I don’t know where it came from…
I don’t know where it began…
I don’t know if it was passed on
to me by my Mum or my Dad –
but I know that I am
the beholder of a fire,
a spark, a light, an energy,
that brought about the creation
of the universe and life-itself…
I feel it constantly burning in my chest…
I see it every night when it illuminates my dreams…
I hear it every morning when I wake up in bed…
I know what it is and I know what it means.

I have known of this internal fire for a while…
I have been driven by this incredible torch
since I saw its rise…
I have tried to describe it
and write poetry about it before,
and every time I do just knowing
that it still burns bright and wild within me
always makes me smile.

I am sure that more than one person
in my life has seen my light
sparkling in the blue and the sometimes green
irises of my eyes –
I see it too when I look in a mirror,
and I know that no matter what happens to me
and where I may end my days
that the light of me
will touch and inspire another
and another and another,
and when humanity finally makes itself
another home on another planet
orbiting another star
that same flame will help fulfill
the destiny of a countless number of people
in an infinite number of ways.

It is a comfort to me
to believe and to know
that I will never truly die…
it is hard to put into words
something that I know instinctively is a part of me,
but also a part of a continuum
that transcends both space and time…
it is why I was born…
it is why I am here…
it is why when I look up at the sky
I believe that I can fly…
and I am not the only one
here on Earth blessed with a gift
to be a beacon of the universe’s divine light –
we are everywhere…
and I never take the fire of my birthright for granted,
and I am honored to be one
of a universe full of torchbearers.

My Poem ‘The Light at the end of the tunnel’

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

At the end of an alley of shadows,
a light in the distance like that of a star,
at the far end of a dark tunnel,
like a shard of sunlight through an open door,
the end of one journey, the beginning of another,
the place you have to reach
so that you can share
what brought you through the bad times
that you never thought would be over –
nothing can prepare you for that moment
when you catch up with your destiny,
when all the confusion of the past
falls behind and you can be the one
who you always wanted to be.

A ray of light from the heavens above,
a stream of energy from on-high,
a rainbow that forms when clouds of grey are broken –
a symbol of both hope and love –
can be like a miracle to those in need of one;
sometimes to find out what you should do next
you need to not push too hard
against what is coming towards you
and do what comes naturally
without you having to try.

Things are lost for a reason’
things are found when the time is right;
sometimes in your life you may go through
more changes in your world than Earth has seasons;
sometimes to over-come any fears
and insecurities that you may find within yourself
you have to plant new seeds
in the garden of your mind
that will one day grow into beautiful flowers
and trees of hope, and dig-up the weeds
that your garden doesn’t need –
and which are only serving
to take life, energy, and growth
away from what you need to thrive
and to keep your secret paradise alive.

Life might be a short four-letter word,
but its meaning and its route
is deeper and it is longer
than could ever be documented
or described with images or words;
a person’s life is a world…
within a world…within a world;
life is what you find when you stop
looking at the future
as if you are viewing it
through the wide-end of a funnel;
a life is what you can find
when you decide to stop walking
at the pace that other people
would have you walk –
and instead sprint like an athlete
towards the light that you see
at the end of the tunnel.

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My Poem ‘The Stranger Things’

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

The stranger things are,
the stranger things matter;
the stranger things are what shine
far away in the dark,
and they are as beautiful and mysterious
as the planets and the stars;
the stranger things become
the more that we think about them,
and the more that we become invested
in the strange things of the world
the more our heart beats faster.

Everybody is “normal” in their own way,
and yet equally as strange;
everybody is a character in someone-else’s story,
and a figure in someone-else’s painted landscape;
everybody can be “at home”
at the same time that they are “away”;
everybody can be beyond who they see
when they look at their own reflection in a mirror
and wear within their mind a vastly-different face.

To me, the stranger things are
the more interesting they are;
to me, the longer something stays unexplained
the more intrigued and the more drawn to it I am;
to me, the stranger things in life –
the mysterious, the one-of-a-kind, the extraordinary –
are constantly leaving their mark for me to find,
like a calling-card;
to me, the stranger things –
the unknown, the questions, the fables,
the stories of aliens, fairies, and monsters –
are so inspiring and amazing,
the more I hear, the more I see, the more I imagine.

What can seem strange to one person
can seem “every-day” to another;
what can seem fantastic to a child,
or to someone who is young-at-heart,
can seem to someone with a closed-mind
like something that could only be found
between the pages of a book-cover;
what I have learned in my life,
as a story-teller and a story-reader,
is that anything and every-thing
can be a fountain and a treasure-trove
of thoughts and energy –
and that life, if nothing else,
is never boring and can be always interesting;
living and breathing in a world deeply
brings with it oracles of gifts,
and they can be found in the strangest of places
filled with the strangest of things.