life

My Poem “Artistic Heroes”

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

I am definitely no John Lennon,
Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Bob Dylan,
Michelangelo, or Vincent van Gogh –
however, they are some of the poets
of music, words, colours,
prolific and deep expression
who are among the members
of some of my artistic heroes.

I am no Shakespeare,
Stephen King, or Neil Gaiman –
however, I am also an author
and a writer who wants to
inspire, to enlighten, to entertain,
and to take the readers of my poetry,
my stories, and the characters
who I have written about
and described, on a journey
that they will never forget
which is unquestionably
a pure creation of my own
varied and constantly
curious wandering imagination.

I am no Albert Einstein,
Stephen Hawking, or Elon Musk –
however, I too think about things
and I wonder why things are the way
that they are and if there are
answers to the questions
that many people daily ask,
like: What is the true nature of life?
Is time-travel possible?
Who or what created
the universe, and why?
Will people one day be living,
breathing, existing, and communicating
every day of their life solely
within the illusion of a simulation?

At my heart, I am a dreamer…
at my best, I am an optimist…
at my most inspired,
I am a man without regret,
without reservation,
without any kind of fear of the unknown,
nor without any worry that
I will one day lose my life-long
obsession with discovering
as much knowledge and inspiration
from the depths and the frontiers
of this limitless universe as I possibly can –
and one day I hope that I will get to meet
all of my artistic heroes in one place
and swop stories with them
about the road that they all took
to get them from where their story began
to the place where they were inspiring
the dreams of many and colouring
the consciousness of the world’s
imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
– Albert Einstein

My Poem “Mark in the Mirror”

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

Sometimes we see things that are not there…
Sometimes we don’t see things
that are right in front of us…
Sometimes we can get lost in
the thought of a single stare…
Sometimes we see mistakes
and we automatically make order
out of the chaos and we filter out
all of the unnecessary things
that surround what we see –
in life, in people, in art –
and we naturally bring
the blurry into focus,
like the art of writing poetry.

Mistakes are natural,
mistakes are human –
however, mistakes are also annoying, perplexing, and for an artist
mistakes are futile in their drive
to want to share something
as close to as what they envisioned
and as close to what they imagined,
as any form of creativity can ever be…
Mistakes are imperfections –
however, mistakes are also
lessons to be learned from
and they are as necessary
for self-discovery
and self-examination
as listening and observing
to the specific rhythm and speed
with which a certain person speaks.

I have made more mistakes
than could ever be counted…
I have made more missteps
than I ever want to recall –
however, I am someone
who always makes a concerted
effort to look for all
the chinks in the armour,
to try and rectify my errors,
and to constantly search for a way
to redeem myself following
a period of illogical
inconsistencies and regrets,
and to take the time
to redefine myself
in order to weed-out
what I believe should not be
a part of my psychological
makeup, and exorcise once and for all
all the mistakes that have over time
become a part of the character
that I daily live with,
share a shadow with,
and who I see every time
I look in the mirror.

My Poem “The Brightest of the Bright”

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

The sun has one again risen
in the sky as high as it can rise…
the light from the sun
that shines down upon us
is this years’ brightest of the bright…
the Summer solstice
has started in the Northern Hemisphere
of our planet and it is a time for some
of celebration and reverie in many forms,
and it is also a time when many people
gather together to welcome
this brand new season of the ever-repeating
and ever-evolving cycle of life.

Our world rotates
and does not stop doing so…
Earth changes and endures –
as do the life-forms who call it home…
time on our planet
is observed differently
and it is perceived
to have more moments
at this time of the year
during which people can enjoy
the delights of their outside environment
because there appears to be longer days
of consistent daylight.

Our planet’s relationship with the Sun
is a constant reminder to me
of how interconnected we will always be
to the celestial sphere of light,
heat, and hope that has been,
and always will be,
the catalyst in the natural development
of the celestial bodies
that have orbited it
since the birth of our closest star –
and I am sure that elsewhere
in the galaxies of the universe
that similar stars to our sun
share a similar connection
with what they have drawn towards them,
the other stars that shine
and ultimately combine to create
the tapestry of heavenly light
that makes the disk of a galaxy
look the way that it does
when seen from above
when all the stars shine in harmony
with their fellow brothers
and sisters of the heavens.

My Poem “Everything that will ever be”

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

When I was a child
I had a poster on my bedroom wall
of the planets of the solar system –
our local galactic neighbourhood
which consists of some rocky, some icy,
some gaseous, some barren, some hostile,
spheres, worlds of every kind,
of every size, of every colour,
of every temperature –
and that was what first introduced me
to celestial names like “Mercury”, “Mars”,
“Saturn”, “Jupiter”,
and the ring of all manner
of rock and ice that lies
and encircles us on the outer-fringes
of our backyard of space,
that is barely effected by the gravity
of the sun at the centre of our solar-system,
called “The Kuiper Belt”:
names that I had never heard before,
but which have since not left
the vocabulary of my imagination.

Space… the unknown…
the discovery of all
the wonders of the galaxy, the universe,
has always been a draw for me…
when I was a child I used to watch
fictional space adventures on television –
within the episodes of “Star Trek”
and in science-fiction movies
such as “Star Wars” –
that fueled my dreams
and compelled my mind
into thinking about the possibilities
that hopefully await humanity in the future,
what we will achieve,
and the reaches of interstellar space
that we will explore at some time
in the near to distant future.

There has always been something
about the sight of the stars,
when each and every
one us look above at the night-sky,
that resonates with something
inside of us – something profound
that speaks to something
within every strand of our human DNA,
our consciousness,
our heart, our soul –
and which captures us
and takes us away
with the gravity waves that
that drive the giant leaps
of art, science, humanity,
and every once in a while
secrets and truths seep into
the mind of someone who seeks
to know the meaning of life –
such as the answer to the question
of how/whether the universe began
and if it will one have an end –
and inspire people of all ages
to never stop searching, digging,
and uncovering the vast
multilayered, multifaceted,
multidimensional universe
of infinity that we are a part of:
the multicolored garden
of experimentation and evolution
that is everything that has ever been
and everything that will ever be.

My Poem “Synchronicity”

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

Hope for the best…
be the best at what you do…
look for the best in everything…
make the best of what comes to you.

Every day is a test…
every day is a puzzle…
every day is both simple and complex…
every day is one of an infinite number
in the age of the universe –
and yet every day is special in some way,
shape, or form, because every day is not
the same as any other…
every day is as precious
and as ephemeral and as transient
as a dream or a bubble.

In this life, you have to be prepared
for the unexpected – but, at the same time,
be flexible and mindful that whatever plans
you make may need some slight adjustments
along the way in order to make them
come to fruition…
in this life, you sometimes have to use
your intuition about something
in order to give you the much needed
motivation to not be disheartened
by the negative voices
that are sometimes directed
in your direction.

Being a dreamer does not mean
that you live in a fantasy –
every idea that ever became
a reality was once the dream
and the wish of someone with a vision
of a world that they could one day
influence and leave their mark upon.

Being human means that you sometimes
have to see the end before the beginning,
you have to leap before you look,
you have to let your mind wander
and let your thoughts influence your actions,
you have to fall on your face,
get back up, and never stop
believing in the good that can come
from following and using your inner
search engine of inspiration –
filled with a life-time of moments,
images, sounds, and feelings –
that is your life and has the power
to influence the course of your life
far into the future and give you
the answer, the truth, the path,
the direction that will one day
synchronize and symbolize
every moment of your life.

My Poem “Talking Flowers”

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

Did you know that flowers can talk?
Flowers talk to bees,
bees listen to flowers –
and together both flowers and bees
commit to a mutually beneficial
relationship of pollination
in order to create the sweet nectar
which some people collect
and convert into honey
which some people sell, consume,
and take great delight in
spreading upon their toast ever morning.

New seeds are planted, more flowers grow
and bloom, and new honeybees
are drawn to the song
and the buzz that certain flowers
are born with the innate ability
to be able to sing and to speak –
and so the cycle continues,
as it has done since the first flowers
of the first garden were first grew,
because flowers and trees are like
everything that grows and is alive:
even though every living thing
is an individual in their own right
everything in this world
is just another expression
of the face of nature
and everything has their own part to play
in the plan of all things.

In general, all living things
are always listening
and they are always speaking…
flowers and plants are like people,
and in so many ways they perfected
the art of living and reproducing
themselves long before we did,
which is why it is no surprise
that flowers and plants have long been
experts on how to live, how to grow,
and how to communicate
and how to proliferate effectively
and yet seemingly silently.

My Poem “Multicolored”

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

Everybody is an individual,
a person, a spectrum of many colours
throughout their life…
no one can help what body they are born into…
everybody constantly hopes to be able
to one day express themselves
in the way that they want to
without feeling abnormal and as if
who they are on the outside
is not meant to fit in with
how the world is, how it is meant to be,
and how it is meant to look…
no one has the right to be able
to tell anyone that they cannot
be who and what they want to be.

Music is life, life is music –
and people in all their many colours
and with all their individualistic
facets are who make the music of life
as rich as it is, and without all
the many pioneers of individualism
and the proponents of staying true
to what you believe
then the world as we know it would not exist.

The best of humanity, the icons of history
who will be revered forever,
the ground-breakers who knew
even before they learned how to talk
that they were special, different,
anomalous, and exceptional
because they saw the world
and the question posed to them
without the jadedness of a dark cloud
of preconceptions hanging over them –
they are the ones who have always been
responsible for giving our world
the gift of pure inspiration,
ingenuity, and innovation
in the many levels of every day life
that different people live upon.

The best stories ever written
are of extraordinary people
overcoming a stereotypical boundary
that ultimately leads everybody
who learns of their story
to be inspired and choose to emulate them
and follow in their footsteps…
I believe that if you are someone
who is “different” from everybody else
then you should feel proud…
monsters, trolls, and bullies are different
and they are treated differently –
which is why people who suffer
from being singled out
often plague others with the same toxicity
as they are daily exposed to.

In my opinion, if you are different
from everybody else then
you truly are “special”
in every sense of the word –
and I have always believed that
when you embrace you own
individual eccentricities
then you may find that you share
more with other people around the world
who already know who and what they are
and who choose to let the light of their
multicolored soul shine like
the constituents of depth
that give light to a star.

My Poem “Mobile Life”

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

Every hour of every day
most people are either
thinking about their mobile phones,
they are looking are the screens
of their mobile phones,
they are interacting with their mobile phones,
or they are sharing and conversing
with other people far away
by using their mobile phones –
because most people are hooked,
addicted, and in need of being
connected to the web that encompasses
most of the world and gives
many people a reason to live,
a means to stay informed
about all manner of things
happening instantly and simultaneously
at any given moment.

Once upon a time, a telephone
was a stationary technological marvel
that allowed two people
to have a conversation with one another –
however, then the World Wide Web was born
and from that moment on people
started to interact in many different ways
and with people who they may never
have known existed before…
and then, when telephones became
more portable and more mobile,
the technology of communication
evolved again and people discovered
that not only could they communicate
with words and sounds they could also
communicate with photographs,
images, symbols and icons that reflect
what they are feeling emotionally.

Computers used to be huge,
room-sized, mechanical innovations
capable of completing calculations
so basic and so primitive by today’s standards –
however, in their day,
they were marveled at because
of what they could do and because
of the thought of what
they could evolve into in the future;
however, now, today, there is no line
to differentiate between what
a computer is and what a phone is
because when you take into account
what each can do there is nothing
that separates them –
computers can do what phones can do
and phones can do what computers can do,
meaning that the lines that one divided
technology, devices, and people
are now blurred into obscurity,
as are the borders and the distances
between countries and homes.

Everybody on Earth is living in a time
when every child born from now on
will never know of a time when
instant interconnectivity is not a fact of life –
and in the future most people
will most likely spend most of their time
interacting with one another
in a simulated reality that looks and feels
like the “real” world but in which
they feel more accepted and at home,
just like people do today in the way
that everything that they do
when it comes to interaction
and living their daily lives
centres around and is instantly
accessible by tapping away on the screen
of their mobile phones.

My Poem “Time Well Spent”

Mark Hastings life, Poetry , , , , , ,

Life is short, we all know it…
everybody only has a finite number
of days and nights to make the most
of the time that they have
on this constantly spinning
and constantly changing planet.
Life is a blessing for most people –
however, for some people born
into a world of chaos
not of their choice,
life can sometimes feel like a curse.
Nobody can stop time,
nobody can prolong a moment,
nobody can live without
being the cause of something
nor without feeling the effects
of other people’s actions.
Throughout life everybody asks questions,
everybody learns lessons,
everybody loses things,
everybody loses people,
and everybody slowly but surely
discovers that life is not simple
and there is no universal
or perfect way in which
to live your life.
Each of us are born for a reason…
each of us are a complex embodiment
of thoughts, feelings, intentions,
dispositions, who have the potential
and the gifts to be able to
make a positive and an impactful
change in the indulating
waves of life – so that one day
each and every one of us
can sit down, look back,
and consider all that we have done
and all that we have been through
to be time well spent.

My Poem “New Horizons”

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

Every day, beginnings
and endings exist and play out
in parallel to one another:
on one side of the same world
one person can be looking
at the sun rising at the dawn of day,
while another can be looking up
at the moon and the stars
of the twilight hours of the night…
everybody lives in different worlds,
living different lives –
even people sitting three feet away
from one another, in the same cafe,
can be thinking, feeling, living,
and breathing in vastly different ways.

Everybody in their life has a path;
however, that does not mean
that the steps that need to be taken
in order to reach the place of potential
are always going to be straight
and easy to be traversed…
every day since the start of recorded
human history empires have fallen
and new dynasties have risen
to fill the vacuum left
when one piece of the tapestry of life
is cut away because it no longer
fits with the modern world that it exists within.

Without exception everybody,
at some point in their life,
has made multiple mistakes –
and often times everybody has to find
a way to adapt and to coexist
with the intentions, the actions,
and the waves of change caused
by people who influence the people of the world
through their words but who live
far removed and untouchable from those
whom they claim to speak for
often times from behind walls and gates
and in castles and in high-towers
which have a power-structure
that has existed for centuries
among many human societies around the world.

What is built must one day self-realize
that there will come a time
when the end is a necessary component
of reinvention, revitalization, renewal,
so that something can continue to be relevant
beyond the time of their prime –
and that goes for the people,
businesses, brands, and opinions
that have existed around the world…
every day there are new lives being born
and every instant there are new universes
coming into existence that are off-shoots
of other universes…
every moment there are things that happen,
there are things that are seen,
there are things and there are people
that change the world and open the windows
and the doors to brand new horizons.