life

My Poem “This time of the year”

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

This time of the year
should be filled with peace,
love, joy, and festivities;
however, invariably,
this time of the year
also sees the rise of feelings
and emotions that instantly
bring some people to tears.

At this time of the year
people tend to reach out
and they want to show
the people that they love
and care about just how much
they mean to them;
however, unfortunately,
not everybody who loves someone
is fortunate enough to be able
to have who they love safe and near.

At this time of the year
there are always loved ones
who are separated by a seemingly
insurmountable distance
or by a barrier between them
that keeps them apart.

At this time of the year
it is always hard to find
the words to describe
that which by their nature
transcends language, distance,
memory, and time –
because so much of what
makes life so special
for those who are fully able
to enjoy it and to cherish it
is encapsulated at certain
times of the year,
and most notably at Christmas time.

This time of the year
should be celebratory…
this time of the year
should be wonderful…
this time of the year
should be gift worthy;
however, the truth is
that this time of the year
is not everybody’s favourite
time of the year
because they may be
missing someone in particular,
because they may be
missing something that they have lost,
because they may be missing
the irreplaceable,
because they may be missing
the times when things
appeared to be easy, simple, and clear –
and that is why it is more important
than ever to be extra sensitive
to everybody you meet
at this time of the year,
because everybody is going through
uniquely personal things in their life,
and especially during the “holiday season”
that is this time of the year.

My Poem “It Takes One to Know One”

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

From my experience,
over the course of a life
of being around music lovers,
movie lovers, storytellers,
and those who have had to live
through many things during their life,
I have slowly felt the awakening of a gift –
a gift that I believe became apparent
when I began exploring, experimenting,
and expressing my thoughts, feelings,
hopes, fears, and desires:
the ability to see and to recognise
a particular gift within somebody
who life has steered towards me
so that I may interact with them –
and because I am a poet,
and because I am naturally
a very emotional person
who is regularly emotive about
what is on his mind,
what he believes to be true,
as I quietly but openly question
what something means and whether
there is more to explore
about something, at the same time
that I am dreaming about
what is in store in the future,
and every day I believe that I see
things in people, in places,
and in ways that other people perhaps
may be temporarily incapable
of seeing and believing –
especially within themselves:
natural gifts, skills, talents, voices,
hidden and perhaps undiscovered
powers of persuasion to be able
to make people feel something
and to bring out something
from deep within them,
and in turn continue the miracle
of life that was begun when light
first shined upon the deep darkness
of space and gave rise to the first stars,
planets, and all the other multicolored
phenomena of the universe
that have been inspiring life
and which was inspired into being
once upon a time by an explosion
of creativity that continues
to bloom over and over
again within the soul of every living thing.

One of the greatest gifts someone
can give someone else
is to recognize and to inform them
that they have within them
something that needs to be shared far and wide
and with as many people as possible –
and I believe that it is the duty
of the creatively inclined
to stoke the fire of fellow artists
and to tell them to do the same
whenever they find someone
with hidden talents,
because sometimes the only person
who can recognise someone
as being gifted and special
is someone with a similar love
that beats within them
night and day like a perpetual drum –
and also because, as the old saying goes,
sometimes: “it takes one to know one.”

My Poem “Pathways”

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

In life there are many pathways
that we all have to travel down –
paths of space, paths of time,
paths of the mind that are made
by experience, by memory,
by feelings, by emotions –
that can be as solid as stone,
as tumultuous as the waves of an ocean,
as electrifying as the wires of a network,
as vital and as regenerative as the nerves
of central nervous system that
carries messages and signals
at lightning-fast speeds
throughout a human body
in order to maintain a normal
state of autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Every day pathways reveal themselves
to people who have been searching
for a route between darkness and light,
between unconsciousness and life,
between the foggy underworld of dreams
and the clarity of reality,
between adolescence and maturity,
and sometimes the steps that need to be
taken may seem alien, forced, and uncertain –
but, as is the case with most things,
the more progress that you make
the easier that it feels
to traverse the gulf between
one side of a road of choices to the other,
as long as you remember to always
look left and right along the way,
and vice versa.

Not all pathways are easy to walk down…
not all pathways are able to be found…
not all pathways have a definitive end…
not all pathways are as straight as an arrow
and more likely than not they have several
twists, turns, bumps, and bends…
not all people realize that they have
actually been on a journey throughout
their lives until they look back,
until they see, until they remember,
and until they realize that life
is the precious gift that we are all
surrounded by every day –
and that is why I believe
that people should take a greater
interest in what is going on around them,
what everybody can do to effect
the world around them,
and realize why it is necessary
for everybody around the world
to consider themselves a part of a
single ecosystem and organism
of infinite, interlinked, coexisting,
cooperative, and codependent
variables that invariably define
the fate of life on this planet
and where the nexus
and the “finish line” of everything
and everybody will be when
there is the ultimate convergence
of every single one of life’s
matrices of pathways.

My Poem “The Quintessential Joker”

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

I have always been someone
who likes to smile, to laugh,
to entertain, and to share my
overflowing enthusiasm
and enjoyment of something…
I have always been someone
who was drawn to moments of time
which revolved around happiness,
hopefulness, and the beauty of life
and the depths of feeling
that the human spirit is prevalent with.

I have always been someone
who understood how precious,
how amazing, what an opportunity,
and what a gift it is to be among
those who live in the world of the living –
and it has been revealed to people
many times over that it is
in those moments in our lives
when our emotions are at their most heightened,
that our minds are open to the possibilities
that surround each and every one of us
but which sometimes have
their secrets and truths
hidden from view because
people are not always in the right
frame of mind to understand
what they mean nor why they are so important…
often times the funniest forms
of comedy come out of the darkest
of situations that we find ourselves in…
some of the greatest writers, storytellers,
and performers the world has ever known
once knew and went through
times of pain, anguish, and fear
that they had to go through and overcome –
because everybody has different ways
of coping with everything
that they have to endure,
and everybody has different
levels of resilience and tolerance –
and there are times when some people
do the wrong thing at the wrong time
but they do not come to their senses
until much later in their life.

Everybody needs some kind
of outlet to return to…
everybody needs some kind
of way to express themselves…
everybody needs some kind
of flickering flame to get them
through the most trying of nights…
everybody knows what is funny to them
and what makes them explode
into a fit of laughter,
and everybody knows someone
who can lighten their mood
and without even having to try
can turn on their charm
and become the quintessential joker.

My Poem “Baba Yaga”

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

There have been times
in everybody’s life
when they have been wide away
at an hour of twilight –
when the moon was shining
its white halo of reflected light
back at those looking
at it from below –
when people have felt,
even though they were alone,
as if an invisible presence was
sitting next to them, staring at them,
and communicating to them a choice
that they needed to make –
for some this spirit may have been
personified as being an angel,
a ghost, a reflection in the mirror,
a face in the flames of a fire,
a rebel devil, a man in black,
a bright light, a dark shadow,
a messenger of heaven, a hellion of hell,
a pale rider, an emissary of purgatory,
a crossroads guide, a Boogeyman,
or perhaps a scary witch who
goes by the name of “Baba Yaga”,
who tests everybody whom they find
or who finds them, in order
to discover who a person is
deep within their soul.

My Poem “The Lion of His Pride”

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

I am just now starting
to recover from the storm
of thoughts, feelings,
and emotions that I have
felt swirling around me,
within me, over the past
two weeks – fourteen days
over which I and my family
have been tested in ways
like never before.

Every day for two weeks
I and my family woke up,
greeted the sunlight of the new day,
clasped our hands together,
looked up to the blue sky,
as we collectively and individually
prayed that things would be ok
and that my Dad would soon
awaken and be saved.

It’s hard to put into words
and to find some kind of reason
to describe what happened and why…
it’s hard to know what to say
and what to do when something
so shocking as what happened happens –
especially when all that you feel
like you want to do is cry.

Everybody has their own path to take
and their own steps to make
when coming to terms with something
so frightening – and no one more so
than the one who is at the centre
of attention and care
who is being willed to get better
and to regain enough strength
to open their eyes,
to say what they want to say,
and to once again stand up
on their own two feet…
there is nothing more scarier to me
than being in the shoes of someone
who has been incapacitated –
but, as I whispered into the ear
of my Dad when he was unconscious,
for my Dad I would have without question
chosen to take his place.

For someone who has seen
as much as my Dad has seen,
for someone who has felt
as much pain as my Dad has felt
throughout his life,
for someone who has been
through so many unprovoked battles
as my Dad has been through,
you just have to wonder
why it is that some people
have to go through
what they have to go through
while others seem to get
an easier roll of the dice…
for someone who is as scarred
and yet as caring, loving, strong,
full of life and purpose as my Dad
has always been throughout his life,
I do not think that it is uncalled for
to ask whomever or whatever is listening
to help my Dad in any way that they can
so that he can continue to be
the lion of his pride that he has always been.

My Poem “The Heart of A Family”

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

There are some things in this life
that cannot be predicted…
there are moments in our lives
that we never want to see repeated…
there are some things and some people
that we all sometimes take for granted…
there are truly terror-inducing,
fear-filled, horrifying and shocking
things that happen to fathers,
to brothers, to sisters, to mothers –
to members of a family –
that have the power of a lightning-bolt,
the gravity of a star, and the explosive
impact of a bomb being detonated
to bring people to their knees.

When terror and tragedy strike
time is always of the essence…
when there is the fear that
someone could lose their life
every action of every second is precious…
when someone’s heart stops beating
the split-second instincts
of a stranger could mean everything…
when a chaotic event takes place
the present and the future
of a person’s life can depend upon
so many disaparate pieces of a puzzle
coming together, to work together,
to give something to someone else:
to restart a person’s heart,
to breathe life back into the lungs of someone, in my opinion,
is nothing short of a miracle,
because giving the gift of life,
so that someone may carry on
living and breathing once again,
is truly incredible and phenomenal in every way.

So many things run through a person’s mind
when they hear that something
out of their control has happened
to someone that they love…
so many different scenarios
are considered and so many
things are thrown into the air
in order to find out who or what
was to blame for what happened,
and for what mostly could not have been foreseen;
however, ultimately, the truth about every one of us is that
no one is untouchable,
everybody is vulnerable –
and when the life of somebody
who is important to a group of people
is threatened in some way
it becomes greatly apparent
whom it is who stands, sustains,
and is the driving force
at the heart of a family.

Dedicated to my Dad
My Dad

My Poem “Between Sunrise and Sunset’

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

On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001,
the eyes of almost everyone on Earth
became fixed upon their television screens
which were showing the shocking
and horrific scenes that were being
played out in the land of the free,
the home of the brave –
and the population of the world,
especially the people of the
United States of America,
have not forgotten, nor will ever forget,
where they were and what they were
doing on the day that the two towers
of the World Trade Center,
in New York City, were attacked from above
and tragically fell to the ground
taking the lives of everybody within them.

Tuesday, September 11th, 2001,
is a day, a month, a year,
seared into my memory
and I will never forget the tears
that fell from my eyes
when I watched the last
moments of life of people whose
only crime was to wake up that morning
and wish to better their lives
and the lives of other people –
and from that day on,
and forevermore, we – the world –
have not been the same,
and every day we mourn.

Whenever we witness something devastating –
like the terrorists attacks of
Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 –
everybody always wishes
that they could turn back the clock
and change history in some way
so that all the people who were lost
could be brought back to life –
but, unfortunately, the terrorist
attacks that happened on
the East Coast of the United States
of America, on September 11th, 2001,
will forever leave a scar
of memory on all of us
who are living witnesses
to a world at war with itself;
however, I still remain hopeful
that one day the entire world
will wake up to the fact
that the true meaning of life is to love
and everybody deserves the gift
to be able to live in a world without fear
in which everybody is able
to do the best that they can,
to live freely, to live happily,
and to make the most
every moment of every day
between the first light of sunrise
and the last light of sunset.

Never forget.

My Poem “The Driving Force”

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

I have been inspired
by so many things
since I was a child:
television shows, films,
books, art, music, places, people –
and everything that I have
had a profound encounter with
has ultimately changed me
in some way, shape, or form;
however, like the after-effects
of a power-outage, as a result
of a bolt of lightning
from an electrical storm,
the realization and the rebooting
of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions
sometimes takes time to adapt
to such a new infusion of inspiration.

Every day I find new things to cherish
about some of the things that I know
like the back of my hand –
but that is the thing about life:
surprises can be found around every corner,
even in the places you visit
more often than most.

It can sometimes be hard to pin-point
where, when, and why something
in particular has the effect on you
that it always does –
but there is never any question
of how something so powerful
gets under your skin
and drives its presence deep within you,
because whether we want to admit it,
or not, each and every one of us
is inherently, biologically,
thin-skinned and fragile,
and easily capable of being influenced.

We are all a product and the end result
of so many influences:
our environment, our family, our friends,
our colleagues, our victories, our loses,
what we intake into our body,
what we subconsciously choose
to expose ourselves to via our senses –
and, ultimately, sometimes at the exact
same time that we are being
driven to distraction,
we can also be the driving force
propelling the thoughts, the feelings,
and the direction of other people
who we too are fueling with our gift
of attention and inspiration.

My Poem “360”

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

It is only when you step out
of your reality –
even if it is only for a short time –
that you discover what the other
sides of life really look like…
it is only when you step inside
the shoes, inside the world,
and inside the perspective
of somebody living in a place
and in a way that may be
far removed from the one
that you know so well
that you learn just how much
of life is not black and white –
because, in reality, life is
all colours and hues
from every extreme of the spectrum
all emanating and infusing
the universe with all its depth
all at once.

At different times of the day
life can feel like a dance…
sometimes life can feel
being at a rock concert…
sometimes life can be like
being at the theatre or at a cinema
watching a play or a movie…
life can sometimes be like
looking into a mirror…
life can sometimes feel like
you have been in a car-crash…
life can sometimes be like
being a passenger on a rocket-ship
bound for somewhere where
the gravity that you have
been used to all your life
no longer exists and you have
to learn to think, to move,
to propel, to motivate yourself,
to be someone and something else
beyond who and what you have always known.

The world turns fast,
but sometimes changes are slow to occur…
unfortunately far too few things
are meant to last,
but the precious gift of life
is to be able to explore
so many of the wonders of this world
that we call Earth.

Nature is always redefining itself…
nature is constantly being influenced
by humanity at the same time
that humanity is being influenced
and inspired by nature –
and every time someone goes somewhere
that they have never been before,
and they turn around to see
what is all around them in 360-degrees,
everybody has to take a pause
so that they can breathe in and breathe out
the dream come true of being free.