I thought about giving up writing once,
I even put all my books and notebooks together
and packed them away in a cardboard box;
I thought about giving up what I loved
and what had always given me profound happiness,
and I even thought I could change who I was
and forget about everyone I had met,
and everything I had written –
but that thought honestly only lasted for a day,
and in no time at all, I was seeing things,
being inspired by things, hearing things,
and wanting desperately to write in my notebook
a poem about them;
I didn’t lose my love for writing,
but I did have my writer’s identity taken away from me
and stripped from me, you could say;
and it broke my heart putting all my cherished poems
and memories away, and putting them under my bed,
and I thought that the only time
that they would see the light of day
would be when I was reminiscing to a friend
that I used to be a poet, at some time in the future
when I was old and grey.
However, do you know what happened?
Do you know what I did?
I did something, that at the time was not planned:
I started again, I allowed myself to feel shame and pain,
and then I took my notebooks
from the box I had packed them away in,
I went to the next blank page of my latest notebook,
and I started to write a new poem
with my favourite silver pen –
I wrote one of my favourite poems, “The Phoenix”,
and I kept writing and writing and writing,
and only occasionally stopping to look back
before carrying on in the direction I had been walking,
I took pride in my gift again,
and I felt like myself again,
because I was writing again.
The moral of my story, if any,
is that if you love something so much
do not run away from it,
do not put it in a box and say “Fine, forget it!”,
because by doing so you are hurting yourself,
you are committing a mistake,
you are doing something that is hard to come back from
before it is too late;
take it from me:
nobody is perfect,
everybody makes mistakes,
the people who try to bring you to your knees
can only do so if you allow your entire world
to descend into a flux;
so, if you ever doubt yourself,
if you ever question what you are doing,
if you ever think that you would be better off
without the one thing that you most adore and love,
put that thought out of your mind
the second that your fear delivers it to you.
If you are an artist, keep making art;
if you are a singer or a musician,
keep making you music;
and if you are a writer, keep writing
and don’t ever believe that all of what makes you so special
could ever easily just be put away,
and forgotten about for a rainy day,
in any kind of memory box.
me
My Poem ‘Heart of a Poet’
The heart of a poet
is one of the most beautiful, amazing,
wonderful, things in the universe;
the heart of a poet is one of the most pure,
enlightening, electrifying, and special,
miracles of life, that blesses whom it belongs
with a mastery of the most spectacular
and gorgeous of words;
the heart of a poet is always open,
and it feels things and experiences
exceedingly more deeply than usual;
the heart of a poet is like an open wound,
like an open book, and on each page
that the poetry of the poet is written on,
with every word of every verse,
the ink from the poet’s pen
flows like that of the poet’s own blood,
and every drop, or full-stop, is undeniably magical.
The heart of a poet was brought to life,
and beats every day of its life,
because of the the muse, the spark,
that inspired it right from the start;
the heart of a poet has its own distinctive
and individual rhythm, and a signature mark of the poet,
that anybody, no matter when or where,
can feel and see, even in the dark;
the heart of a poet aches to touch the heart of another,
and begs to be touched;
the heart of a poet always bounces back,
even if it has been hurt, or crushed;
the heart of a poet is bigger on the inside,
and even during an entire lifetime
it is impossible for it to completely be filled;
the heart of a poet is at home anywhere –
in space, in the air, under the sea,
breathing in the openness and beauty of a sunny afternoon
looking at the staggering scenery of nature
that surrounds a countryside field.
The heart of a poet is sensitive to sights, sounds,
smells, touch, and emotions;
the heart of a poet is one of life-long love and devotion;
the heart of a poet is better described of as a fire;
the heart of a poet is capable of unbelievable generosity,
and its greatest hope is to be inspired, and to inspire.
The heart of a poet is not given away easily,
and, like trust, you must earn the gift of the bond it forges,
and it should never be taken lightly, or for granted;
the heart of a poet is always scarred,
overactive, unique, and haunted;
the heart of a poet is able to transform
any full-grown adult into a big kid;
there is nothing in the entire world
you will ever encounter, see, read, hear, and touch,
more phenomenal and epic,
than the immortal heart of a poet.
Mark Hastings: The Eternal Boy
My new book ‘The Eternal Boy‘ is finally here! It is available to buy right now on Amazon in both paperback and ebook versions – Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/1vACmgI and Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/1KGCCfw
–Mark 🙂
My Poem ‘Send in the Poets’
Send in the poets,
instead of firing your bullets;
send in the poets
to raise your spirits;
send in the poets
to inspire hope that you will never forget;
send in the poets
to give you a feeling in your heart that you can’t express;
send in the poets,
and they will take away your fears,
and alleviate you of any distress;
send in the poets,
and you will feel blessed;
send in the poets,
and you will see love coalesced;
send in the poets,
and your heart will beat, spark,
and thunder like a lightning storm in your chest;
send in the poets,
listen to them read a poem,
and feel absolutely refreshed
and like your best;
send in the poets,
and experience a magical moment,
as you watch the sun setting in the West;
send in the poets,
and you will know incredible happiness;
send in the poets,
and you will know nothing but success;
send in the poets,
to know true paradise and bliss;
send in the poets,
and for the first time in your life
you will feel like you can achieve anything,
and take all of life’s hits,
understand all of life’s tricks,
be hypnotized by the moments of an eclipse,
be transfixed, know the reason that you exist,
never again feel adrift,
believe you will possess all that you have ever wished,
emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis.
Words are sometimes hard to say,
but in those moments when there is so much to say
that needs to be said:
open your heart, open the door,
and let in the wizard of words and the awesome orator;
close your eyes, and ask the universe
to send in the poets.
My New Book ‘The Eternal Boy’
Hi, everyone!
My new book of poetry ‘The Eternal Boy’ is now available to preorder from Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1938082095 and Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/1938082095 – check it out and get your copy now! 🙂
-Mark
My Poem ‘No Filter’
A beautiful, gorgeous, sunny, warm morning –
with blue sky above, multiple reflections all around,
people coming and going, living, breathing,
seeing, experiencing, and music playing everywhere you are,
and a different voice for every hour that you hear.
I am sitting with a wonderful cup of coffee,
at a table next to a wall of windows
that stretch as far as the eye can see;
I am looking out at the city,
basking in the daylight of sunlight,
feeling energized and inspired
by the atmosphere of outside and inside;
I am seeing, listening, drinking,
thinking, dreaming, feeling,
and doing my favourite thing: writing poetry.
I am in plain sight, and it is as if no one can see me,
or is interested in me, or what I am doing –
nobody would ever think to approach me,
and ask me what I am writing;
however, if someone were to ask me what I am doing,
or how I was feeling, I would tell them that
the only way that I can describe how I am feeling
at this exact moment, is to say that:
I feel as if I am a bird in the sky,
hovering above the rest of the world,
not even needing to flap my wings too much
in any way at any time –
because I know that there are times
when instead of exerting yourself
with a lot of flapping about,
sometimes you can get to where you need to be
by simply using the external forces that surround you,
and using them, if you have the means,
to simply and silently glide.
As I look at the world,
the natural daylight instantly highlights the colours,
the details, the resonant aura of everything,
and the reason for things to be the way
that they click into place;
as I see the spectrum of existence and life jump out at me,
I have the biggest smile on my face;
as I look to the horizon,
and then to what I see right in front of me,
the scale and the impact that hits me
of certain things, that for some reason interest me,
instantly inspire me, and I see patterns repeating,
and shapes that have meaning;
I see and read emotions, attitudes, interests, tastes,
on the faces and in the actions of everybody,
and I am intrigued and fascinated;
and I also see things that I would change, if I could –
if I could just blink, or snap my fingers,
and change someone’s direction,
or show them another choice to make,
or an alternative to something I can see they are about to do –
however, I am merely an observer, a poet,
someone who can only say what he sees,
and express how something makes him feel,
and, though sometimes I wish I were,
I am far from omnipotent,
and that is a good thing.
Life is what it is;
the world is many things,
and is in many states of being, all at once;
some things that happen can feel like a magic trick;
everyone can believe anything they want.
Whether in the bloom of spring;
whether in the cold but beautiful light and air of winter;
whether you are doing something you have done before,
or whether you are being blessed
with the sight of something you cannot ever remember
at any time before seeing;
whether you are sitting, standing, lying, waiting,
and you have a chance, a moment, to look around
and take in life and the world,
do so if you can with perfect vision
and with no need for a filter.
My Poem ‘Like Clockwork’
Every form of biological life
has a rhythm to their biology
that the very cells of their body
run by, and run on-time to –
from the first light of a sunrise in the morning,
to the dark at the end of the day at night;
everybody’s body is governed by a Circadian cycle,
that repeats daily, that happens naturally,
that does what it needs to do, silently,
that we all partake in,
like a life worshiping disciple.
Rhythms and cycles surround us all;
and we too have a set orbit,
like that of a planet circling around a star,
that we need to maintain or things just don’t feel right;
rises and falls, ups and downs;
someone’s heart-rate, or the beat of someone’s pulse –
something so regular, it can easily be measured,
and can give focus to all of our senses,
like the sound of footsteps down a long hall.
Everyone has a revolving ‘merry go round’,
a carousel, that they jump on at some time in their life,
which they stay on, and once they are spinning happily
and contently they find it hard to get off;
everybody ticks in time with everyone around them,
and walks at a pace like that of the fast hand of a watch,
and their heart beats like the resounding tock of a clock;
everyone who has a job is more than familiar with routines,
and doing things over and over in the same way
that they were first shown, told, and taught –
and if changes need to be made,
and if you need to adapt,
like the gears of an engine,
you need to shift up, or shift down:
you must do what you must do,
to save the engine of your life from a stall.
Most of the conscious things that we do,
we do based on a feeling;
most of the things that we know we have control over,
we can make slight modifications
as to how we do them –
but when we do something over and over again,
we most likely revert to our finely-tuned quirks;
most of the unconscious acts that take place,
happen out of our sight, and the reason for some of them
is beyond even our understanding;
almost everything that we all do,
happens based on a repeated and constantly repeating rhythm,
that keeps going no matter what,
and is as predictable and precise as clockwork.
My Poem ‘Another Life’
Do I dare dream of another life?
Do I dare to think about what could be?
Do I dare to make real the dreams that I dream every night?
Do I dare to feel what I feel when I see what I see?
Uncertainty can be scary;
when you can’t see the other side of something,
you might as well be staring into a singularity;
if you don’t run, and jump head-first into the unknown,
you may never know what is out there;
if you don’t try your hardest at something,
you may not realize just how much you care.
Things can sometimes be covered over from view from you,
as if under a blanket of thick white snow –
and unless you dig deep there might be some things
you might not discover, and never know.
Life gives us all signposts to follow,
but most people miss them when they first look;
if you believe in something,
if you believe in yourself,
if you believe that you have something to offer –
then you can do and be anything:
a soldier; a teacher; a writer,
who has the opportunity to put his stories,
imagination, and dreams, on paper
and see them proliferate all over the world,
as the printed words of the author of a book.
Anything is possible.
The world, and the people of this day and age,
have made it so that anyone can achieve their dreams.
Life, and the human heart, is fragile – but also powerful;
and if you were to spend a day and a night
watching the cycle of life you would understand the calling
that doctors and nurses know, hear, and see,
when they work a shift at a hospital.
Just because something appears as if it is done, at first glance,
it doesn’t mean that the spirit of something
you thought was gone won’t rise again from the flames.
For the rest of your life,
you can keep asking why? until the day you die –
but while you are doing that
you may miss the answer you have been looking for;
sometimes in life you have to go out
and find that spark that you need,
because it won’t always and spontaneously knock on your door;
so if you are thinking about giving something a try,
by all means do it if it feels right to you –
because that just might be the first step that you need to take
to finding and having another life.
My Poem ‘Serendipitous’
Life is extraordinary!
Everything happens for a reason.
The universe is a tapestry.
Everything that seems like it is happening spontaneously
is actually occurring, and ticking along like a grand father clock,
and is maintaining itself with cosmic and epic precision.
Coincidence is a myth.
Nothing is accidental.
You are meant to be connected to whom
and what you are with;
the things that happen every second to everyone,
and are just waiting to come to life,
are spectacularly transcendental.
I have seen too much,
I have met too many people,
I have felt too much,
I have experienced too many things,
that have been breathtaking, incredible, and unbelievable,
to not believe that Life has a plan –
and to that plan we are all essential.
Every day I see and I am touched by the hand
and guided down a path of destiny,
that is like traveling and being carried on a cloud of music,
and being enlightened by the phenomenal and beautiful
muse of life-changing poetry.
I cannot describe or capture everything that I see;
I cannot tell everyone everything that happens to me;
but I can share and imbue the world and its people
with my energy, with my words,
with my divine and meaningful experiences,
and one poem after another show
and make people believe that this life that we all live
is more precious and special than any of us truly realize;
however, I have been gifted the insight, the feeling,
the magic show to eclipse all other magic shows ever
on more than one occasion, and I can tell you
that we are all a part of a work of art of cosmic proportions,
we are all stitches that are all attached to threads –
like the contra-trails of the engines of a jet –
and as we move through life our threads become entwined
with those of everyone else, and everything else;
and we all have an energy within all of our hearts and souls
that radiates and speaks to everything else, silently;
and there are moments in life when we hear, see, feel,
and are dumbfounded by perfect moments,
that were meant to happen,
and will lead to other perfect moments in the future,
and throughout all time and space –
because these awesome and phenomenal,
special and perfect moments,
are the universe existing at full-flow
for us all to see and to follow –
and it is then that we can all see
that the universe and all life is one, the same,
and serendipitous.
My Poem ‘The Missing’
We all deserve to be happy;
we all deserve to find what we have been looking for;
we all deserve to feel and to see;
we all deserve to have what we adore;
however, deserving something does not mean having,
and no matter how much you want something
there comes a time when we all have to accept life’s reasoning
for keeping something out of our grasp –
and that is why some things and some dreams,
no matter how heart-breaking the thought of letting them go is,
you have to allow them to stay where they are,
and the place where they must remain
and exist is solely in the past.
It’s hard to imagine what you can do
when life doesn’t go the way you had always planned;
it’s hard to see a new path
when you feel like you are trying to survive day to day
on a boat, floating on an ocean, miles away from land –
and when there is no land map that you can rely on
to show you the way, you then have to turn your head upwards
and use the light and the constellations of the stars
and the sun above in the sky to lead you
to the nearest rocky or sandy bay.
It is only in times of loss and confusion
that we mostly have to rely on our instincts
to be the source of our salvation;
it is only when we feel like we are going around in circles,
and spinning rather than moving, do we look for a route out
and away to a better place;
it is only when the mirror of our life gets smashed
do we see and realize that everyone’s life
sometimes has a time when it is in a state of reflection fragmentation;
it is only when we see, meet, and talk to those
who have had some troubles, problems, and worries in their life,
do we truly accept that we are human,
and struggle, hardship, perseverance, staying hopeful,
holding on to what matters to us, to keep going, keep trying,
never giving up, are the building blocks
of everything amazing and incredible and worthwhile,
and the defining make up and nature
of every member of the human race.
Have a dream to hold on to always;
have a motivation to make you want to achieve
what you want to achieve;
have an imagination, and try to see many avenues at-once,
because you can sometimes miss things
when you only travel in one direction all the time,
and explore and see things in multiple ways;
have the courage to hope for the best,
even when something seems hard to believe;
look, listen, learn, love, laugh;
try, trek, talk, take a chance to change things,
to smooth things over where before they were rough;
fail, fall, forgive, forget, be fearless,
and see the full meaning of everything;
make, mark, maintain, magnify,
and I promise you will find what you have been missing.
markthepoet.me 