The days as a child
that I spent daydreaming;
the days as a child
that I spent simply being;
the days as a child
that I spent reading, creating,
making, watching, listening, and learning,
were the best and the most care-free of my life;
and my memories and recollections
of the days when I was a boy, thinking back,
were truly inspiring, exciting;
and there are times now, as an adult,
when I look around and I think,
and I sometimes wish,
that I were still the boy that I was,
and still dreaming.
I am constantly writing down memories;
I am always drawing maps in my mind
to lead me back to where I have been;
I am continuously saving things;
I am frequently returning
to the places that I had to leave.
Things must change;
sometimes in life
you have to navigate and find your way
through something that feels like a maze;
even though most things that we do in life
happen and never leave any trace,
it is important to remember the important things –
like places and faces –
that make you say out-loud:
‘those were the days’!
memories
My Poem ‘Hang Out’
In arcades, in malls, in parks,
in places where people assemble like disciples,
in large groups, in smalls numbers,
there are places that continue to attract people,
for one reason or another,
because of what they mean,
and because of what they offer.
Friends meet up to talk, to see each other,
to catch up, to share some time with each other,
to have a drink with each other,
to have lunch with each other,
to maybe see a film at the cinema with each other,
to have fun with each other,
to celebrate life, and to continue to bond with each other.
The things that interest us,
the things that we think about
and feel the most passionate about,
are mostly the same things
that our friends think about,
and usually that is the reason that they are our friends;
the things that we could only share with our friends,
and talk about with our friends,
are usually the things that we cannot speak
to anyone else about –
because unless they know us and who we are,
the context of what we have to say
would be unfathomable to understand.
It’s easy to hang out with people who you don’t know,
but have something in common with,
now more than ever;
where before you would have to arrange a place
and a time to see and to talk to someone,
now, in the instantaneous interconnected age
of infinitely accessible knowledge,
we all can reach out in a second to someone
who might live five thousand miles away,
or five minutes down the road,
and have a conversation with them
using incredible technology in the palm of your hand,
as well as share moments that you have captured
and think they might like.
For thousands of years, people young and old,
children and adults, at different stages in their lives,
have come together to be in the same place,
at the same time as people
with whom they are exactly alike
to the degree that you might think
that they were separated at birth.
The draw to something amazing, and mesmerizing –
a feeling, a light, a flame, a memory,
an individual, a shared understanding –
is one that everybody and every thing
has felt and feels daily in all walks of life,
and to those who are members of every species on Earth.
There are things that we all want to discover,
and learn more about;
there are people who we wish we knew personally,
and we feel things for them
that before them we never felt.
There are clubs, colours, books,
music, past-times, fashions,
that can unite the many and the few, equally –
so much so that they make our heart shout.
There will always be places, and people,
where, and with with whom,
that we will crave to be, and to see,
to spend as much time in their embrace,
and simply hang out.
My Poem ‘The Wonder City’
I don’t know if anyone
could ever say enough or all
about New York City,
“The Wonder City”,
in every respect –
to me, it is a perfect place:
a place of inspiration,
beauty, and infinite opportunity;
a place for anybody and everybody;
a place that I have not seen for a long time,
but a place I still dream about and think about,
which is constantly calling to me.
I knew New York City was important to me
the moment that I saw it,
I knew I loved New York City
from the moment I saw the skyscrapers of its skyline
through the window of the taxi;
I knew I would not be the same person
after having lived, breathed,
and become a part of New York City;
I knew I did not want to leave,
and I wanted to return as possible,
when a tear fell down my cheeks
at the thought of all the incredible memories I made
in the place that no matter what time of the day it was
was always brightly lit.
The Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building,
the Rockefeller Center, Central Park,
the New York Subway, Fifth Avenue, Sixth Avenue –
everything I saw, everybody I met,
was beyond my imagining, and instantly I knew
that New York City was the one place on Earth
where I would feel at home living;
it is hard to describe and explain
why New York City means so much to me –
every second I was there I never took for granted,
every step I walked had deep and intense meaning,
every time I felt my heart beat hard at what I saw
made me feel so happy,
every day felt like a year;
and after walking up, I loved doing my ritual of
getting a take out coffee from Starbucks,
taking a walk around and through Central Park,
returning to my hotel room with a breakfast bagel,
and then leaving my hotel again
and going off on a new adventure
in my favourite city.
At night, when I was in my hotel room,
near Central Park, and I sat at my desk near my bed,
I dreamed, I wrote, I remembered,
I ingrained every moment of the previous day
into my DNA forever;
while walking the New York City streets in the moonlight,
I knew that I was where I was always supposed to be;
while sitting in the shadow of a statue of Christopher Columbus,
on a bench at Columbus Circle, in New York City,
I knew and I felt an incredible and energizing feeling
that felt like I was in my own version of heaven,
and a perfect paradise for anyone artistic,
creative, especially a writer.
Every minute that I was in New York City,
I knew and I understood why the best city on Earth
was also the worlds most spectacular city,
and why it was known as “The Wonder City”.
My Poem ‘Unforgettable Sixth Avenue’
They don’t understand;
how could they?
Everything that happened,
everything that I wrote,
happened to me,
and I wrote it in my words
and from my perspective;
how could anyone else understand
what it was like to go through what I went through,
if they were not there at the time,
if they did not feel how I felt in the moment;
people tell that they like what I write,
but I wonder what they actually think,
what they imagine when they read something of mine,
and I wonder if anyone will ever be able
to truly be of the same mind as me.
I remember walking the streets of New York City,
like it was yesterday –
in my mind, and in my heart, I am still there,
and I want to be there:
I can still hear the sounds,
I can still taste the air,
I can still see the lights of Broadway at night,
I can still remember the moment I was found,
I can still go back there anytime of the day
in my imagination and daydream
even the smallest of details
that I still remember and love to this day,
as I will everyday.
I treasure my memories,
and I replay the best and the brightest of my life
as often as I can;
I miss people, places, times,
that will always be special to me,
more than anyone could imagine;
I relive my youth,
because those years I never want to lose;
I listen to the songs that I remember hearing
on the radio as a child, and I understand them
and what they were trying to say to me then,
now more than I ever knew.
My heart has been open wide since the day I was born;
every day of my life,
something unforgettable has happened to me,
and I remember so much
I wonder if there is anyone else
who loves being alive
and remembering their experiences as much as I do;
even now, I can easily flashback
to the most perfect day of my life,
to the night when I wrote my first poem,
or to the moment when I remember
standing on the street corner
on the “Avenue of the Americas”,
on a beautiful September afternoon,
in Manhattan, in New York City,
and being in awe of the entire world
and the gifts of life
that I can still see happening right this second,
on Sixth Avenue.
My Poem ‘Sensitive Skin’
I feel every raindrop;
I feel in awe after every burst and touch of the sun;
I feel so much strength of spirit and drive of life,
I could never give up;
I feel like my story and who I am
is written all over my skin.
I have always been sensitive to the thoughts,
the feelings, and the emotions, of those around me,
and those who are connected to me;
I would be there for my true friends until the very end,
even if doing so were to push me to life’s edge;
I live and feel every experience deeply,
as if they were my last,
and I often immortalize my memories in as much depth
as possible in a poem, or three;
I will keep going until I no longer can –
and that is my eternal pledge.
My skin is fair, and when the sun is as hot as can be
I burn to the colour of a lobster;
you would think that after everything I have seen
and been through, my skin would have become thicker
and as hard-wearing and as smooth as leather;
my skin still has impressions made on it
from when I was a child –
that have not worn away, and never will be worn away;
I still have the impressions of kisses,
and scars from times gone by,
that remind me of things and people,
every single day.
Every mark made on me is indelible,
and if seen under ultraviolet light
my skin would be like a piece of parchment,
or a creased manuscript,
that has been screwed up, thrown away,
rewritten, amended, over and over again,
that no matter what is done to it
can still be read and understood;
it is comforting for me to always remember
and see where I have come from,
and who was influential in making me Me.
Empathy, sensitivity, caring, creativity,
and an extraordinary memory,
is something that is in my blood;
the wear and the why of something,
and how something appears years after
it first originally came to be,
tells its own wonderful story.
Our skin is a map of where we have been;
our skin is touched and sculpted by our environment:
by nature, by the wind, by the rain, by the sun,
by the moon, just as the grand and great canyons,
valleys, mountains, of Earth, have been;
our skin is like the front cover
and the back cover of a living book,
in which an amazing, phenomenal, unique,
and individual story of a person’s life lies within;
there is no greater question than that of a person’s skin,
especially if you are like me, and you have sensitive skin.
My Poem ‘Memory Box’
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.
My Poem ‘Tales of Wonder Lands’
Every great and compelling character of literature
was inspired by a real person, actual people,
idyllic dreams and memories of imagined places;
every great story, every great tale,
came to life by bringing together
within the vivid and infinite imagination of a writer
lots of influences and sources of inspiration –
from one to a hundred different amazing lives and faces.
All my favourite stories, and characters, as a child, and now,
were adventures with heroes at the centre of them,
who did the impossible, who went where I,
nor anyone, had ever gone before;
my favourite tales of wonder featured superheroes
who had the power with a single leap to leave the ground
and to be able to soar among the clouds;
the most important role-models of mine
of literature and fantasy were those who had unbounded life,
energy, hope, and a thirst to overcome potential
circumstances and obstacles, for the greater good of others,
and help those in need, in any and every way that they could.
Peter Pan, Super-man, could easily fly
without a second thought,
and travel to far away worlds,
and shine a light for others to follow;
Robin Hood, Spider-man, stood up for the plight
of the oppressed, and those who had been wronged by someone,
and who were not afraid to bend the rules of the law
in their own way: by robbing the rich to give to the poor,
or fighting to save the life of a stranger in trouble,
because it is the right thing to do;
The Man With No Name, Captain James T. Kirk –
men traveling and exploring their own individual
amazing and sometimes tumultuous and lawless frontiers,
encountering allies and enemies around every corner,
and leaving an impression of themselves, their name,
their face, and their inspiring values wherever they go;
Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Neo from the film The Matrix –
characters of different gender, age,
and from different stories about different worlds,
but who both were given a choice and an opportunity
to follow a White Rabbit, and free their minds,
and see the world that you can find
when you step through a looking-glass,
and be gifted an experience that is only bestowed
to a chosen few.
The easiest way for a writer
to create a brand new character
is to base their appearance
and their demeanour on someone familiar;
the best way to craft a memorable epic
is to populate it with characters of depth and soul,
and a reason to be as strong as a living,
breathing, physical person;
even characters capable of performing the fantastic
have to have something, or someone, to which,
or to whom, they care about and are forever anchored to,
who have flaws to them that readers and watchers
can associate with, sympathize with, support, and champion.
Some of the best stories and characters
are based in realities and worlds
in which there is no true black and white,
light and dark, and the characters have to walk a grey line,
and have to question themselves and the roles in the time
and society that they live;
most of the stories that live on through the ages
have human characters who are given great power
and great responsibility to do something amazing,
and to make a difference with;
writers, poets, storytellers, dramatists, directors, artists,
envision worlds, and immortalize people, that in real life
they have a relationship to, like family, and old friends;
everyone can find people and places in stories,
books, films, poems, which they enjoy reading about,
returning to, going on adventures with,
seeing things that can only be seen in the dream-scape
of a persons imagination, and what we all bring back with us
from these times, and universes,
and what we learn from the fictional and real people we meet
may one day be the muse and the inspiration
for brand new tales of wonder lands.
My Poem ‘Star Stuff’
As the stars of the dark fade,
and the most important star in our lives rises;
as the sky’s light slowly and silently
becomes golden, beautiful, and a gorgeous masterpiece
that has been newly-made –
there is no sound, but the birds singing in their nests
and flying in the sky, and an air of calm,
and a sense of content happiness,
that to the many who are awake and taking in the same moment,
bring joy and smiles to their faces.
Our sun is like an old friend that we hear from every day;
our sun is like a guardian that wants to energize us,
and protect us, but also wants us to run with it,
and be free under its gaze and glare,
to get out there and play;
our sun makes life possible everywhere on Earth;
our sun welcomes every child on our planet,
and has done so, and will continue to,
and be the light that every baby, boy, girl,
adult of all ages, races towards,
as they did at the moment of their birth.
The sun beats within all of our hearts,
a piece of our star in our soul
is what intensifies our emotions;
when we all feel love and longing,
it is the living core of the sun
connecting to us and speaking to us,
and making us feel like it always does;
the sun is a fiery sphere that makes everything clear,
that is so close and yet so far –
but still keeps that world blessed, warm,
illuminated, and in motion.
We are all a beautiful, intricate, constellation,
and our thoughts and memories are a galaxy of moments
of light that make us who we are;
our story began not just at the moment we arrived in the world,
bu when the universe itself came into being
and exploded spectacularly into life,
and every day we all carry within us
something that was there, and lives on,
from the beginning of everything,
and each one of us is made up of and are,
and will continue to be,
the spark of rebirth and the stuff of stars.
My Poem ‘I wish’
I wish I could put into words what I am thinking,
I wish my poetry could truly reflect what I am dreaming;
I wish I could express in greater depth what I am feeling;
I wish I had a voice for song,
because if I did I would not stop singing.
I wish I could live in a bookstore;
I wish I could replay my memories
on a blank wall in front of me,
like a movie projector;
I wish I could breath underwater
and explore the seafloor;
I wish I could go back in time
to my first day of school when I was four.
I wish I could relive the best of my life
over and over again;
I wish I could go anywhere,
and be with anyone, any time;
I wish I could change myself between who I am now,
and who I was then;
I wish I could explore the universe
and not be afraid for a second at what I might find.
I wish I could play an instrument;
I wish I could make the dreams of the most deserving come true;
I wish I could go camping, and sleep under the sky
of an infinite field of stars,
with a glowing fire next to me,
without the need for a bed or a tent;
I wish I could be reciting these wishes,
and living these hopes with you;
I wish we could all find great, new,
hopeful ways to coexist;
I want only the best for you who is reading this-
that is what I wish.
My Poem ‘Our Room’
The space, the place, the sanctuary,
the part of our home where we can truly be;
the dance-floor that is there for us to move around on
like John Travolta;
the studio where we can listen to music,
and create our own;
and where we can sing
while channeling every kind of performer-
from a ‘rock god’, to a classically-trained tenor of opera.
In our room, we are surrounded by all of personal possessions
and memories, and all our favourite things
that we have collected throughout our lives;
in our room, we can read, study, surf, watch,
and interact with the rest of the world,
while wearing the face and name of any guise.
Our room is where we dream;
our room is where we can talk to friends;
our room is the place where not that many people have been,
or will ever see;
our room is a cocoon that contains all that we need
for any and every day, and any eventuality,
from the instant that we emerge and rise from our bed.
Our room should not just be the place where we sleep;
our room should not just be where we spend
one-third of our lives without nothing to show for it;
our room should be our temple, our library,
our catwalk, our personality, our gallery,
our place of safety, our place of serenity,
our place of development and growth-
like a mothers womb;
where we return to and enter with a smile;
where we feel and can imagine ourselves as anything, or anyone;
where we can lose our inhibitions,
and shower ourselves with all kinds of magic-
that is the place that is our room.
markthepoet.me 