love

My Poem ‘My Jam’

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

From All Hail The Silence, to BT…
from The 1975, to David Bowie…
from Savage Garden, to Johnny Cash…
from Ed Sheeran, to Set It Off…
from John Lennon, to Walk The Moon…
from Young Guns, to Muse…
from CHVRCHES, to Christian Burns…
from Bruce Springsteen, to Green Day…
from Lady Antebellum, to James Bay…
from Carrie Underwood, to a-ha…
from Armin van Buuren, to Bruno Mars…
from Bon Jovi, to Bryan Adams…
from Coldplay, to Michael Jackson…
from Tears For Fears, to Sixpence None the Richer…
from Daft Punk, to New Order…
from Prince, to Deadmau5…
from Tracy Chapman, to Crowded House…
and many many more –
that is but a selection of the artists
and the bands who make music
and who have created songs
that I adore and I listen to over and over.

Music is a great source of inspiration for a writer,
and the music and the songs that inspire me the most
are those with a message to them that touches my heart
and sets off a chain-reaction
and a rejuvenation of spirit within me like no other –
from Electronic Dance Music, to Rock…
from Classical, to Pop…
from fast, to slow…
from a ballad, to something wholly-instrumental –
I find great peace and beauty,
I find great love and serenity,
in hearing the voice and the music
of the heart of an artist, or artists,
that bridges the gap from my ears, to my mind…
from my imagination, to my soul.

My love for all types of music
stems from when I was a boy –
even as a child, I knew there was something special
to what I heard all-around me,
which others might just have
thought was background noise…
my heart has a rhythm to it
and it creates its own music with every beat –
and even now, when I hear a great song
that I haven’t heard before,
it doesn’t take me long
before my heart skips-a-beat
and I am tapping away with my fingers
and moving in-time, to the music I hear,
with every movement of my feet…
when I hear my favourite songs,
I secretly have this insatiable urge
to “bust-a-move” and dance –
there is a deep-seated reason
why music means so much to me,
there is a truth to why
I could never live without music
that stares right back at me every day
in the mirror of my mind…
whenever I listen to my playlist on my iPod,
I always get millions of sparks of inspiration,
and for a long-time after I finish listening
to my favourite songs I still hear
the echoes of the music
that make up “My Jam”.

My Poem ‘Star Power’

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A star in the sky…
a light to guide you…
a religion to live by…
a god and a role-model to look up to…
when you need an answer,
when you need inspiration,
when you need a flare of hope
to wipe away your fears,
when you need a destination…
distant lights…
far-away, heavenly…
people and places who call on others
to come to them and follow in their footsteps…
someone, something,
that you can’t find anywhere else on Earth…
someone, somewhere,
with whom you might find your life’s purpose…
someone, something,
who transcends an idea
that you might have previously had of a hero…
someone, somewhere,
to whom you have always been meant to know…
some people know the following that they have
and the interest that there is in them…
some people who are influential
in another person’s life
carry on doing what they do
oblivious of who they are…
some people talk to millions of people
every time they tap at a keyboard key
or write a word with a pen…
some people have a muted-voice,
but what they have to say
can journey straight into a person’s heart…
some people who are well-known the world-over,
and have been doing and working away
at their craft for a while
have learned, sometimes the hard way,
both the pitfalls and the beautiful things
that can come with a measure of success…
some people who are famous for doing
the thing that they love
sometimes do not get to see
the true joy that their art flowers into
within the soul of others…
some people cannot handle the attention
that is sometimes focused on them,
and they live a life of excess –
and they sometimes feel a loneliness
that they cannot express…
some people, no matter how important
and successful they are,
sometimes have to pay a price
for being so noticeable –
but, for the vast-majority of people
with a voice that their fans listen to,
there are great things that come
from having a so-called “Star power”.

My Poem ‘The Passion of The Poet’

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Love… blood… passion…
an explosion, an eruption…
an over-flow of emotion…
the feeling, the energy… the electricity…
the fast-breathing, the heart-beating…
the unstoppable flow of rejuvenation…
lovers tap into it… writers write with it…
musicians use it… artists create with it…
we were all made from birth in its image…
an excitement… an enlightenment…
a wish-fulfillment…
an enjoyment and a freeing of spirit…
a belief… a faith…
a way to feel as if you are both flying
at the same time that you are sinking
beneath an ocean of crashing waves –
a timeless moment… a connection beyond touch…
a vibration like the strings
of some kind of cosmic-instrument…
an addictive rush… an unquestionable
recognizable look in the eye…
the expression on the face…
the language of the body –
the unbounded physicality…
the spark… the fire…
the unquestionable desire…
when I am writing, when I am composing a new poem –
I know it straight away,
and I know where it comes from,
because I have seen its face so many times,
but some days it is like
the kiss of an angel on my cheek
and others it is like I have been hit
squarely between the eyes by a bull…
it’s like jumping into the sea off of a pier…
it feels magical, incredible –
and just trying to describe
what I am feeling in my heart
just makes me feel it more and more…
a true expression of your heart’s desire,
when done without hesitation,
can only lead you in one direction…
when you just stop,
and listen, and you hear
that voice of inspiration,
there is only one thing
that can possibly follow:
love… blood… passion.

My Poem ‘Draw’

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Everyone has instincts…
everybody has to learn
how to react, and when…
everyone makes links…
everybody has to learn
how to use their god-given gifts –
whether it be a gift with their mind,
with their feet, with their hands on a steering-wheel,
with their fingers on keys
or on the strings of a musical-instrument,
or by connecting their heart, soul,
and their dexterity to create a piece of art
with a brush or a pen…
inspiration sometimes comes
from the most remote and random of places –
however, true beauty, to me,
true love can only come from one face…
what draws one person to another
is sometimes hard to fathom –
most of the time it is what and who we see
upon first-sight and it is a physical-attraction;
however, there is more to life than the physical…
there is more to life than what you can see…
there is more to someone that makes them beautiful…
there is more that makes the world what it is
than could ever be believed…
some things are tangible, but most things
are felt with another kind of ‘touch’…
some things can be simplified and described,
but some of the most important things in life
no words – at least to me – could ever be enough…
one example of a boundless, spiritual,
powerful, life-changing, magic that can fill
a person’s heart, soul, mind, and body
to overflow is the most phenomenal
of all energy in the universe: love –
and once you have found ‘The One’
who gives your life meaning every day
feels as energizing as feeling a burst
of brilliant starlight from the sun above…
nobody knows what their calling will be,
nor when it will come –
but when you know it for what it is
you will feel like you are momentarily
floating free off of the ground,
it will be like gravity is no more –
and once you feel what comes next,
nothing and nobody will be able
to stop what rises from the moment
that you feel that indescribable draw.

My Poem ‘Blind Curiosity’

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When the sun went down
it was like witnessing
a great eye closing…
when the daylight
faded into the darkness of twilight
it was like seeing the world
slowly fall asleep…
when the golden light shone up
instead of down
it was like watching the world
appear to start a journey
towards a state of dreaming…
when the sky was finally devoid of colour
and the stars came out to shine their light
from unfathomable distances away…
I found myself looking,
just above the horizon,
to where the sky meets the ground,
and I was drawn high above and far away,
on a flight of fantasy,
to a place within my own imagination –
but which felt more like a part of a dream
of someone divine who could create
beautiful new worlds
from the moment that they touch
the ocean of infinite dreamers
with the toes of their feet.

I always walk blindly into a dream…
I have no preconceptions
about what I might find
when I start looking deep inside…
I have always wondered
whether we could revisit a dream –
even one that we might have had
when we were children
and after we had been read a bed-time story –
and I wonder if an adult
observing a child’s thoughts
would know instantly what they mean?
I envy the playground
that every child has within their mind –
the scope of a child’s fantasy world has no limit,
and within a child’s imagination
every moment can be the instant
of an infinite number of sunrises.

The evening sky is a magical piece of heavenly art,
as the birds return to their nests,
and as the owls, the foxes, the badgers, the bats,
the wildlife of the night start to appear,
when it is dark so many things happen…
there is so much wonder, thought, love, magic,
and imagination that blooms like a flower
constantly under the light of divinity…
there is so much life in this world,
and most of it thrives at night
when the universe recites its sonnets for us to hear,
and when the dreamers of existence leap with joy
into the realms of blind curiosity.

My Poem ‘A Gift of My Heart’

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My Angel, my world, my love, my light,
my heart, my soul, my day, my night,
the muse of my poetry, the magic of my dreams,
the best thing that has ever happened to me,
the one person in the entire world
who gives my life meaning,
my sun, my moon, my obsession,
my addiction, my best-friend,
I truly, madly, and deeply love you
more than you could ever know, Melissa.

I spend every minute of every day thinking about you,
imagining the perfection of your beautiful face,
looking into your eyes, holding your hands,
kissing your lips, feeling your heart beating with mine,
living and breathing as-one, forever and always,
loving each-other, making memories,
holding each-other and never letting go,
giving one-another all that we have to give.

You care so much, you love so deeply,
you make me smile and you make me so happy,
and every day with you in my life
has been the best days of my life,
and I never want to be without you,
because I see, I know, I feel,
that within you the divine light of heaven shines bright,
and every day I cherish you
and I want to give you gifts of my heart-
as if every day were Valentines day,
Christmas day, or your birthday,
from night until day and from day until night.

My Poem ‘Cherish the Light’

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

Light is a gift…
light is a beacon…
light is the life that we live…
light is a signal…
light is what paints the colours
and the hues of nature’s seasons…
light is what everything rises towards…
light is what highlights the beautiful…
light is the source
of what is constantly driving
every one of us forwards.

A life without light
is a very dark place indeed;
a night-sky without stars shining in it
is like a life without love – incomplete;
a life spent without artificial illumination
is one that truly understands the importance
of the sun and the moon to all our lives;
a child born in the glow of fire-light
who does not think to take it for granted
knows that light is the most important miracle
known to the entire universe,
and that the greatest repeating spectacle
that anyone can witness in life
with their eyes is the epic, silent,
beautiful, breath-taking,
ascension of the sun
at the moment of a sunrise.

It is almost heart-breaking to watch the sunset
and to see the world around you fall dark;
it is amazing to look up at the sky at night
and see an almost-infinite number of stars
beckoning and telling their silent stories
of space and time, distance and journey, life and death;
it is sad to think that because light and life is so precious
that it can so easily be taken away
as quick as extinguishing the life of a spark;
it is every living-thing on Earth’s right
to have a light to live by and gather-around –
light can be found on the outside,
however within our own mind and heart
there lies a light that is more important
to keep alive and burning bright until your last breath.

Cherish the world…
cherish people…
cherish the magical…
cherish love…
cherish the sun…
cherish life…
cherish imagination…
cherish the light.

My Poem ‘Only for you’

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

It’s hard to believe
it was just a year ago,
it’s unbelievable to think
that before this time last year
we had never met face to face;
it’s incredible to think back
over the last 12 months
about everywhere we have been
and all that we have done,
it’s breathtaking to remember
every memory that we both made together,
and to know only the secrets
about moment that only you and I know.
It’s been 52 weeks of close-encounters
like nothing that could ever be matched
even by a visitor from outer-space;
it’s been epic, it’s been amazing,
it been magical, it’s been fun…
the last year, since the first time
we both came eye to eye with one-another,
have been the best days of my life –
there hasn’t been a day, or a night,
that has gone by since the first time I saw you
and I fell under the spell
of your beautiful and hypnotizing eyes,
that I have not thought about
that life-changing moment when I felt
both lost for words and happy beyond-content –
when I saw your gorgeous face
and I was forever captured
by your transfixing star-light.

You can’t know what a moment in time
will mean to you until it happens,
but I knew even before I met you –
when all I knew was your voice and your picture –
that you were both a blessing and a wish-fulfillment;
you can’t know how much your life will change
until you meet someone who you just can’t get enough of –
and I could have never have known how happy I would be
until you became my world and my eternal soulmate;
you can’t truly know yourself
until you meet the person fated to be
the other-half of your beating-heart;
you can’t know true love until your reality
eclipses all the beautiful visions of your dreams –
when I was blessed by you I knew from that instant
I would never be the same and that no distance
to get to you to be with you
would ever be too far.

Every moment that we spend together feels like a dream;
every kiss that we share is something powerful to me;
every hug, every cuddle, every stroke of your perfect face
is like a miracle – to hold an angel such as you are
means more to me that I could ever say;
every “I love you” that crosses my lips
for you and only for you is my way of telling you
that I am yours forever, and that no matter where I am
there is never a second when I am not thinking about you,
dreaming about you, and loving you uncontrollably
more than I could put into words –
because you are the meaning of my life
and the light of my day,
and my heart and my love
will always be only for you.

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‘Truly Madly Deeply’ – happy anniversary!

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

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On the 26th of September, 2015 – almost a year ago – one of the most amazing, incredible, and life-changing things ever to happen to me happened… I met my beautiful and gorgeous fiancé, Melissa (@chikadee12282) for the first time face-to-face, and it was and still is one of the most amazing day’s of my life! I love Melissa so much, and in December of 2015 I had a book called ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ published, which I dedicated to Melissa, which featured inside it a short-story I wrote chronicling the magic times Melissa and I shared upon our first meeting and also poems that I wrote for Melissa. As I said, September 26th is the anniversary of Melissa and I meeting for the first time, and so to celebrate this magical anniversary of ours I am going to be giving away 5 signed copies of my book, Truly Madly Deeply! So, if you want a signed-copy then all you’ve got to do is follow me on Twitter or on Instagram and Tweet me what, or whom, do you think was the inspiration for the title of my book – and the first 5 people with the right answer wins a signed copy of Truly Madly Deeply. Also, if you write a review of any of my books on Amazon then you too will get a chance to win a copy. Sound good? 😎 ❤

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

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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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