It’s been a long time since I wrote like this… It’s been a long time since I felt like this… It’s been a long time since I felt as if I were adrift… It’s been a long time since I made a wish… It’s been a long time since I felt as if I had nothing else to anchor me except for my family and my poetry… It’s been a long time since I looked in the mirror and I did not recognise who was looking back at me... It’s been a long time since I saw some of the muses who over the last ten years have knowingly, or unknowingly, inspired me... It’s been a long time since I experienced a true new beginning - but now that I have been left by those who I once thought I knew and who I thought knew me, I believe that I am having to walk while fully awake – where before, perhaps, I had only been sleep-walking... It’s been a long time, but I think I know who I am now… It’s been a long time, but I think I get the message clear and loud… It’s been a long time, but I think I have been touched by a light like the sunlight that eventually breaks through even the darkest of clouds… It’s been a long time, but I think I have arrived somewhere where I have acquired what I have been looking for – somewhere I can only acquaint to being some kind of poetic Lost and Found.
lost
A Poem A Day #315: Turned Around
My Poem “Gone”
No matter how much you try to hold on to something sometimes you lose things, sometimes you lose people, sometimes you lose time; however, one day you unearth a piece of your past and you look at it for the first time in years, and, to your amazement, it does not not mean to you what it once meant - where before you would have done anything to not be parted from a particular thing, now, all the feelings that you once felt for something, you discover, seem to have evaporated, seem to have become lost, seem to have left without you knowing - and though, before, you might have told yourself that you could never live without that particular thing in your life, you come to find that time appears to have helped you more than you realize to get passed what might have been holding you back, because now you find it easy to walk away from what was never meant to be, because what once was is now gone.
My Poem “The Misunderstood”
Everybody always looks to their peers
for a familiar face to trust…
everybody always looks to
who they seek out on a regular basis
for guidance about what to think,
what to believe, what to do,
and what is the truth…
everybody always looks to the images
that they see being presented
in newspapers, in magazines,
on television, in movies,
and on the screens that they use to
access the infinite streams of the internet –
and everybody sees some things
and everyone sees some people
slightly differently depending upon
their own personal opinions, attitudes,
experiences, and past relationships.
I believe that some things are not open
to interpretation, for example:
we are all human beings,
we all live on the same planet,
we all breathe the same air,
we all have the same colour blood
coursing through our veins –
and though we are not all the same
physically, psychologically,
or emotionally, we are all people,
we all need the same vital things
to survive, to grow, and to thrive,
and the fact is that some people
in this world have had it worse than
other people could ever truly imagine.
I think everybody needs to focus
more on what we all have in common
rather than on what divides us
and we all need to treat one another
with all the respect that we are due
through acts of selflessness,
mentoring, sharing, and coming to
an understanding that hopes to help
heal the scars of the past
so that everybody can one day
be defended and represented
by those who chose to rise above
the use of violence to settle their
problems and instead decided
to reach out and find a dialogue
of words and actions that they
hoped over time would help
to right some of the many wrongs
that have been wrought upon
the innocent, the forgotten,
the lost, and the misunderstood.
My Poem “The Angels of Sacrifice”
Remember the many…
Remember the brave…
Remember the lost…
Remember the scared…
Remember the tears…
Remember the cost…
Remember the courage…
Remember the men,
Remember the women,
and Remember the children
who still wear the scars of war,
the scars of chaos, the scars of confusion,
the scars of survival on the outside
and as well as those invisible scars
that they sometimes dwell
upon silently on the inside.
Always Remember why the world is
the way that it is,
and because of whom…
Remember, embrace,
and never forget the stories
of those who suffered through so much
in hope of helping to build
a brighter future for the next generation…
Remember, respect, remind,
and renew every day the gift of freedom
by never taking life for granted,
and by never forgetting all the heroes
who have sacrificed their lives
during times of war and utter darkness
and despair who soldiered on
no matter what for all the people
of every country of this fragile world.
Today, and every day,
if you are lucky enough to be able to do so,
take a moment to close your eyes,
to think, to Remember, and to appreciate
the angels in all their forms
who have walked this Earth –
whom you may have met –
who made a difference to the lives
of everybody simply by going to
where they were needed and by helping
those in the most urgent of need.
I will Remember, I will Never Forget –
and I hope that the memory
of the lost and the fallen
will always live on
in the consciousness of everybody.
Lest we forget.
My Poem “Between Sunrise and Sunset’
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 “Rough”
There will be so many people
sleeping rough with a hard pavement
as their place of rest this Christmas…
There will be so many homeless men and women
sleeping on park benches
or on the green grass of public places
as they try to stay alive
as best that they can over the festive season…
There are so many people who I see daily,
weekly, sitting or lying on the ground
with their heads as low as they can go
who look as if they have given up
and as if they have lost any sense of hope:
people who feel like living on the streets
is their only option
because they have nowhere else to go…
I cannot imagine how it must feel
to live such a life of desperation –
there are people who do give whatever they can
to people who are homeless,
and there are even churches
requesting anyone who can
to donate a coat that they no longer wear
so that someone who hasn’t got one
and someone who needs one can have one…
I have asked myself many times
what the answer is to this troubling
epidemic of homeless people
that is endemic to big cities
all around the world –
from New York City in the U.S.A.
to Birmingham in the U.K. –
and the unfortunate reality
that always presents itself to me
is that there is no silver arrow idea
that could completely put an end
to the problems felt and carried every day
within the heart and the mind
of those who live on the street…
All the money in the world is not enough,
love alone is not enough,
and time is not always the greatest of healers
to a long-term problem…
Life is not always easy for anybody –
however, I believe that we as human beings
need to start turning our attention
more to those people who feel like
they do not have much,
those people who need to be given a hand
and lifted up off of the ground:
those people for whom life is as hard
as the ground that they sleep upon
each and every night,
and those people for whom every day of their life
is as rough as it could ever be.
My Poem “The Monarchs of Women and Men”
No one can fly forever…
at some point even an angel of the skies
has to come back down to Earth…
no flight can last forever…
memories of being above the clouds
always stick in everybody’s mind –
no matter how much time has past
nor what they have seen or heard,
because the miracle of flight
is a dream that keeps on giving…
all kings and all queens
rise, reign, and die…
every Monarch at some time in their lives
has to look up to the sky
that they will always remember and say goodbye…
every thing and every person
ever remembered after their last words have been spoken
is recalled and thought upon differently –
but the best of things and the best of people
are incapable of being forgotten
because they are like the kings and queens
who inspired their people to do great things…
like the best writers, actors, singers, and musicians
who are still remembered
and their art is still enjoyed after their death,
some people can never die,
because they are the Monarchs
of all women and men.
My Poem ‘Missing Letters’
Messages can be exchanged
in an instant;
feelings can be communicated
with a heart-beat;
some letters
that never reached
their intended recipient
and destination
could be those
of the highest importance;
gone are the days
when you would literally
have to wait weeks for a single reply –
however, I still believe
that the most powerful of contacts
that there could ever be
are those that are made
by using your feet.
First-person perspective,
face-to-face,
eye-to-eye and infinitely expressive
is always the best,
especially when it does not wholly
require the assistance of a satellite
orbiting in space –
but in this day and age,
we who are living here on Earth
are so lucky to have
all the means of technology at our fingertips.
I must admit that I too would feel bereft
if I could not speak what I am thinking,
as well as express myself
via my facial-expressions –
like the blowing
the one I love a goodnight kiss.
The written word and the printed white page
is a thing of beauty, to me –
but the power of text and the images
of a back-lit and bright screen,
I must admit, are, to me,
a draw, and to one
I am like that a moth to a flame.
I adore books and stories
written be fantastic and phenomenal writers,
but what you can see and share online
on the internet is an incredibly evocative,
vivid, and epic, world-changing domain.
I recently read a news story online
about the discovery of an amazing find:
a leather trunk from the 17th century
had been unearthed that contained
over two thousand letters –
most of the letters that have been translated
tell stories of a people
and what they were feeling and thinking
at a particularly eventful
and momentous time in their life,
while most of them thus far
still remain a mystery
as to what they say –
and I truly believe that such a discovery
is one of a treasure
that may never again come to light,
because those letters are fragments of time.
Letters can be lost, misplaced, forgotten about
sent out across the sea in a bottle –
however, messages that are sent electronically
follow you wherever you go
and are like coin thrown into a well
that never reaches the watery bottom.
Our electronic messages are like our own
digital ghosts and shadows
that we are responsible for;
our electronic images and profiles
can be seen by everyone and anyone,
24-hours a day, from the last light of dusk
to the first light of a new dawn.
There is a lot to be thankful for
about living in the times that we do;
we have discovered answers to questions
that our ancestors prayed to god
that they wished they knew;
there are things that we all do well –
but we as a species, in my opinion,
can all do better;
we may all find what we have been looking for
all our lives if we too were
to somehow miraculously discover,
or rediscover, buried over time
a treasure trove
of lost or missing letters.
My Poem ‘9/11’
The die was cast far and wide,
the pain was felt deeply and irrevocably
on that sunny Tuesday morning,
on the Eleventh of September, 2001;
terrorists to all mankind
came out of the shadows
from where they had been hiding
and made an attack
and left a lasting scar
on all of humanity,
that to this day still pains me
even now, 14 years on.
How could anyone do such a thing?
Why? Oh my god, why?
Who would think to do such a thing?
The innocent do not deserve to die!
I mourn the lost;
I am mindful of the loved ones
and the family members
who were left behind
and who still struggle
to live and to move on,
as if nothing happened;
I still believe that the entire world
is still understandably shell-shocked;
I have been to Ground Zero,
I have stood in the place
where the shadows of
the World Trade Center still remain,
and I can honestly say that being there
where so many people lost their lives
had a profound effect on me:
the new Freedom Tower
and the pools of remembrance
that are now in place of what was once there,
in memory of the indescribable tragedy
and the massacre that took place,
will always be to me
sacred and holy ground.
I have flashed back to that day
every year since 2001;
I have imagined myself where I was,
sitting in front of my TV,
watching the news reports
of the true American horror story unfold;
I have wished many times
that what happened on that day
could somehow have been prevented
by some miracle of heaven;
I have watched the echoes
and the repercussions of what happened
on that day spread and effect
everyone and every country around the world.
I am a man of many words,
but even I struggle to put into words
the sadness that I still feel
about all the people who died
in New York City,
at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
in Virginia, in Pennsylvania,
and everybody who has lost their life since;
I am a man who believes
that things happen for a reason,
but I cannot, nor could I ever,
nor could anyone for that matter,
give me an acceptable justification
that would make my confusion
about the murders that were carried out
on that day in any way lessen;
no deplorable and horrific act of terrorism
like that which played out
in front of everybody
on the 11th of September, 2001,
to me could ever make sense;
I will never forget;
I will never allow the fallen to be forgotten;
I will always hold on to the memory
of my unforgettable brothers and sisters,
as I hold up my hand
and feel my heart beating in my chest;
I will always remember
the day that will always be known as 9/11.
markthepoet.me 