memories

My Poem ‘Snow-where to run’

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

I am not sure if it is just me,
but I’m sure that it used to be,
that more than often than not
it used to snow only at Christmas time?
I’m not sure if it is just my memory
playing tricks on me,
but I’m sure that it used to be the case
that every Christmas when I was a kid
was a white Christmas –
however, now it is as if
the seasons have shifted slightly
and the weather of December
has now moved to the months
of January and February.
As I look around the world,
and I see the photos taken
by people of where they live,
snow appears to have fallen
and countless cities around the world
are now covered in a thick blanket of white.

New York City at the moment
is a winter-wonderland;
Washington, D.C., will soon be waking up
to what fell from the sky the night before;
people who usually wake up every morning
and go out for a run around Central Park
are putting on their winter coats
and knitted hats and scarfs
and instead they are planning to go for a walk;
the Potomac River has a layer of ice over it
so thick that it may take days for it to completely thaw.

From Rossville to Nashville, Tennessee,
a world of white is all that you can see –
perfect conditions for anyone
who likes throwing snowballs,
or perhaps going down to the local store
on a pair of ski’s
all the way up 7th Avenue in New York City;
from Times Square to West 59th St.,
adults and children are walking down roads
frozen in time in every sense of the word –
cars and taxi-cabs still stand
in the same place they stood the day before.

Here in England,
we have been lucky up until now –
three years ago, at this exact time of the year,
I remember walking down lanes
in the countryside of my home
and thinking that the only thing
capable of getting from A to B
with any kind of speed
would have to be a snow-plow;
when snow falls here in the United Kingdom
the entire country almost comes to a stand-still –
the kids love it when it snows though,
because their schools close for the day
and they can run around the streets and have fun.

There are some cities
and some countries around the world
that have a temperature of -20 degrees Celsius,
and where a day without seeing a single snowflake
would be to someone who lived there
just as miraculous as walking
across the surface of the sun;
for most people when it snows
it gives them a reason to stay indoors
and turn the heating up,
catch up with family and friends,
and share their pictures and memories with the world,
and it gives them an opportunity
to look out there window
at the snow that they see
and remind themselves that
where they are is where they are meant to be
and no matter where they look
they have nowhere else to run.

My Poem ‘The Gift of Ideas’

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

Ideas are like a tower;
thoughts have a structure;
dreams are like a castle of clouds;
wishes are like a beach
of long-forgotten shells;
memories are like photographs
that have faded over time;
old photo-albums
are like old songs
that remind you of people
and places from your life.

Eyes open; flowers blossom;
light shines; heart-rates rise;
life grows; the dark is exposed;
the clouds part;
a miracle becomes real
as the music starts –
and like the composer of an orchestra,
you put together the pieces of picture:
sometimes the music is loud,
sometimes the instruments are distinctive,
sometimes the players are both known
and unknown –
perhaps just one face in a crowd;
sometimes, most of the time,
what comes seemingly from the most random
reasons and places
are the most impressive,
even to the dreamer of the dream –
because they are so wonderfully inventive.

Things are not always obvious;
the seemingly unconnected
may have more in common with one-another
than they appear;
just like people,
some things sometimes speak
with a similar-sounding voice;
sometimes even a thing of extreme beauty
can bring someone to tears.

Ideas can be like a lost puppy
that you find walking the streets
without an owner;
ideas about people and things
sometimes change and can be
like the highs, the lows,
and the speeds of a roller-coaster
that go in every direction
before finally coming to a rest;
ideas can be like reconnecting
with a long-lost sister or brother;
ideas are one of life’s
most amazing and incredible gifts.

My Poem ‘Ice Dreams’

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

Ice-skating in New York City;
building snowmen in London;
waiting to hear
if the groundhog saw his shadow
in Punxsutawney, Pensylvannia;
sitting in your living room with your children
while watching the movie ‘Frozen’;
collecting fire-wood;
going for long walks;
sitting in a cafe with a coffee and a good book;
meeting up with friends
and enjoying the company of someone
who you haven’t seen in a while
and having a good catch-up and talk;
wrapping up well in thick clothing;
wrapping gifts to be given to friends and family;
listening to seasonally-themed songs
playing on the radio that you can’t resist
the temptation to sing-along with;
the tradition of decorating a room and a tree
that when completely adorned
has the wonderful gift
of making all that look upon it
incredibly happy.

Everybody has a vision and a memory
of what Winter is all about;
to some people the cold temperatures
of winter are what they dislike the most
and they would gladly, if they could,
do without;
to me, it wouldn’t be Christmas especially
if it were not cold, cloudy,
and at any moment it did not feel
like it were about to snow at any moment –
I don’t think I could get used to
having a Christmas, in say Australia,
where it is as hot as the turkey
that is being served up on the dinner table
outside in the sun,
where as you are eating
you can smell the aroma
of food being cooked
on a nearby barbecue.

There are some people
who have never seen
a single real-life flake of snow
fall before their eyes;
their are some people
who have seen more winter days
to last a life-time;
their are some people
who could just out of their window
at a flurry of snow without ever getting bored,
while happily enjoying mulled-wine and mince-pies;
their are some people who know and love
that it is winter by the intoxicating smell of pine.

There is something about winter
that brings out different things in different people;
there is something amazing and beautiful
about how the light of the sun
shines on a winter day
and the way that it can make everything gleam;
there is something fairy-tale-like, and almost magical,
about a snow-covered world;
there is something about everything
that stirs the imagination
that calls back to memories of childhood experiences –
and though to some the thought of cold
and of snow might be their version of a nightmare,
everybody can remember every time
that they had a waking-
or a night-time envisioning
of a very memorable,
and a most-likely cold,
ice dream.

My Poem ‘Feelings’

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

As one book closes,
another story begins;
as a new book begins,
the eternal story continues;
as eyes open to greet new light,
eyelids fall under the weight of the stars
that shine above at night;
and while some rise high,
others cannot help but fall deep.

Every day we understand
more about our own lives;
every minute we wonder
what happened to all of our time;
every second our heart’s keep beating
to tell us that we can do more
with our gift of life;
every spark of thought
that comes to our minds
can be like the lure
on the end of a fisherman’s line
calling to, and connecting with,
both the past and the future,
the unforgettable
and the one of a kind.

The pages of time
flick back and forth
like leaves on the wind;
if you look closely around you
you may even see who and where
you were when you were younger;
whatever, or whomever, brings light
and joy into your life
will always be your best friend;
every moment only comes once;
every experience has a half-life;
everybody follows in the foot-steps of another;
embrace every chance of happiness;
enlighten the world with your smile and your grin;
live your dreams day to day and night to night;
in your life there will never be nothing,
because all that you need
will always be that which is closest to you –
we all have hands, fingers, eyes, and a mouth
to grasp and to show
the colours of our feelings.

My Poem ‘Thankful for’

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

As family prepare to gather,
as the sun shines
and the sky is blue –
as someone who is thankful,
as someone who is grateful,
who is both the loved and the lover,
I am thankful in more ways
than I could ever say
to be alive and to be able
to write this for you.

I take lots of time
thinking about the who,
the what, and the when
that have passed by like a river;
I constantly reflect
what I see and what I feel;
I have always considered
golden experiences
as memories to be made
a part of my DNA,
as well as simultaneously
to be remembered;
I have always believed
that no matter where you are in your life,
wherever you are in the world,
that there is always something
that to anybody else would seem small –
but to you that same something is a big deal.

As I have gotten older,
the things that I am thankful for have changed –
but that which matters the most to me
is still the same;
as I have lived, I have slowly come to realize
that life goes by faster than a bullet-train,
and things do sometimes happen
that you should not spend too much time
trying to explain.

Clouds form, rain falls;
colour is painted over the face of the dark;
there is no such thing as an impenetrable wall;
the seafloor, the sands of an island shore,
the photos of now compared to those of before,
that which will be forevermore:
the indescribable, the tangible,
the special, the spiritual –
that which only I will ever truly know –
is what I am the most grateful for;
however, the gift of love
given with all their heart
by the love of my life only to me
is the thing that I am the most fulfilled by
and in my life I am the most thankful for.

My Poem ‘Paracosmic’

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

Within all of our minds
we all live in a paracosm of reality;
by mixing the real with the imaginary
we can all see sights beyond imagining;
with our eyes we see,
with our ears we hear,
with our insights and our intuition
we create a map of our universe
that is coloured by the memories
we have made that are all
the more beautiful and amazing
because they are too deep
and too perfect to be in any way
artificially designed.

We all hold the key
to the lock of a doorway
that leads far beyond the stars;
we all fly with a burning tail
that contains the fire of rebirth
like the feathers of a phoenix;
we all can watch people take giant leaps,
and then take epic leaps of our own
and imagine we are the first human on Mars;
we all like that moment in a story
when we reach the point
when the story becomes
about something unexpected entirely
with a wonderful dramatic twist.

Stories have a structure,
life is naturally more organic;
stories have characters
that have defining characteristics,
intentions and motivations,
that tie the beginning and the end together;
life is like an untamed animal,
and like any wild creature –
when you come face to face with it
it never pays to run, blink, or panic.

I can return to my dream-scape, my paracosm,
my imagination mansion of infinite rooms
whenever I close my eyes
or whenever I look at the world
and I see rhyme and reason happening
and dancing with one-another in-tandem;
everybody has a world within themselves
where they can be the monarch of their own kingdom;
to me, fantasy is just reality re-imagined
and transformed as if with the dust of Morpheus
into a dream, a wish, or a prayer;
with our mind we can all envision
a way to solve every and any problem of the world –
and sometimes what starts within us
can manifest and be seen and heard
like a dragon awakening from their lair.

People dive deep below
the surface of reality
into the sea of a story
when something tells them
that there is something about it
that they need to know;
books are self-contained galaxies
that have hidden bridges within them
that link them to each other,
as well as to the future and the past;
the times when the more that we blink,
the more that we think,
and the more that we want to make a moment last –
that is when we run, we fly, we dive, we fall,
and take with us our memories of a time
so that they can live forever within our paracosm,
and always have the power of them
to make us feel paracosmic.

My Poem ‘Time to Remember’

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

We remember the heroes;
we remember the villains;
we remember the what,
the where, the when, and the why;
we remember the people who tried;
we remember the people who achieved;
we remember those who fought the good fight
but who died while doing what they loved
and what they believed in;
we remember the good times,
and we remember the bad;
we remember the times
that went by too quickly,
that we remember coming to an end
as we looked over our shoulder and cried.

As the weather turns colder,
as the leaves change colour
and then fall to the ground,
as people wrap up more
and wear more layers,
as we buy fireworks and light bonfires
and we gather together
and we start to think about the well-being
of our significant others,
a spirit of good-will and humanity
sweeps over the world.

We should all be thankful for what we have;
there will always be someone
who will look at you
and want what means the most to you;
we all make new footprints
while walking again down familiar paths;
sometimes, especially at this time of the year,
things of importance come to light
that before you always wondered about
but you never knew.

Gifts of sentiment,
things that still carry a shine of memory,
the unique and the different,
the people who matter to you dearly,
seem to glow brighter
at the coldest and the darkest time of the year-
and now is the perfect time
to tell someone or to remind someone
that as long as they are in your thoughts
and as long as they are a part of your life
that they need not fear.

Gather, surround,
think, thank, be grateful, wrap,
step closer, invite,
reconnect the ties
that were once believed severed forever;
forgive, but do not forget;
make the most of the present;
save all that you can,
because these are the times
of your life to remember.

Time-to-remember-poem-excerpt

My Poem ‘Back to the Future’

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

Wednesday,
October 21,
2015

There are things that silently inspire us;
there are things that we can call back to
that can have the effect of being
a time-travel flux-capacitor;
there are things that truly have a hand
in making us;
there are things from all of our pasts
that we constantly strive to bring back
and make them a part of our future.

For everybody,
every day of our childhood
is a playground that we always want
to make the most of;
when we are children
we all look up and are absolutely captivated
and hypnotized by the sight
of an airplane flying through the sky above;
everybody uses their imagination
and the memories of the things
that they have seen and heard
to build dream-landscapes and new worlds
of all hues and colours within their mind;
we all have a date that we always say
that if we could go anywhere
at any specific moment from our lives
that we would always choose to go to
and to go back to, if at any instance
it were possible to travel through time.

The idea of time-travel –
just as with the possibilities of space-travel –
is a wondrous fantasy that we have all
entertained more than once;
the amazing prospect of being able to go back
and come face to face with a direct relative
or ancestor of ours,
who we share a miraculous similarity to,
is one that we would all embrace with both hands
if we were given the chance;
some people would rather live in the future,
while others would prefer to know the future –
especially their own personal future;
I, personally, would love
to be able to flash back
and see myself, and perhaps introduce myself
to myself at a young age,
and reassure my adolescent self
that if you/I believe in yourself/myself,
and if you/I continue to be
who you/I know you are/I am,
and as long as you are happy,
every day of your life will contain within it
a glistening and shining jewel
like the pearl within an oyster.

Everybody wishes
that they could meet their parents
when they were younger;
everybody watches movies
that depict a potential future
and they hope that that imagined world
would come true sooner rather than later;
everybody wishes that they had a time-machine
to use at their leisure;
everybody sees things
or witnesses something
that they wish hadn’t happened
that they would definitely
change the outcome of,
or stop from happening entirely,
if they had the means
and the time to do over.

We are all time-travelers;
we are all traveling every second
into an unknown future
that we have next-to-no power over
to control beyond the actions
that we choose to make;
we are all effecting the world around us
with every step that we take;
we are all able to travel
without the need for roads
and discover our reason to be:
where we are going and why –
just like Doc. Brown and Marty McFly did
in one of my favourite films from my childhood…
Back to the Future.

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My Poem ‘Light of your life’

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

Life is a symbiosis;
we may be one person,
but we are not meant to be alone;
life can be counted in sunsets
and sunrises –
however, what truly counts
and what everybody remembers the most
throughout their life
are the times that they share
when they felt the most
comfortable and at home.

Our memories are like candlelight
flickering in the wind;
our dreams are like old photographs
that have faded over time;
our fascinations and our connections
from our childhood are like breadcrumbs
of where we have been;
our thoughts and our emotions
carry farther than the seemingly small,
but in reality near-infinite,
confines of our own mind.

However young or old you are,
sometimes life can feel like a struggle –
and the greatest cure,
and the thing that you crave the most,
when your life feels like it is a rocky road,
can be as simple and as special
as a wonderfully-long hug or a cuddle;
sometimes the pressure of living can feel too much
and it is then when all you need
is that phenomenal and incredible
loving caress and touch.

Everybody shares something with everyone else;
love is universal and amazing
and is not meant to be unrequited;
even prisoners can still hold on to hope
behind the walls and the bars
of their prison cells;
those who are meant to be
must do all that they can to remain united.

Technology soon becomes out-dated;
time goes by in a flash;
some things are random,
and some things are fated;
the days to come always have echoes
within them of experiences from the past.

Never give up hope that you will one day
fall in love with someone who loves you too,
and when you find that perfect person
you will find that they understand you,
and they will want nothing more
than to orbit around you like the moon.

The things that are meant to happen and work out
the way that they are supposed to always do;
what is truly important to you
is what you carry with you
through your entire life;
and like the one in your life
who loves you the most,
until your dying day,
everything and everyone
will always be with you
and be the light of your life.

My Poem ‘GA 30741’

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

Upon first awakening, all is dark
while the air is still warm;
when drifting off to sleep
during the summer-time
is when the lightning bugs glow
in the twilight as they swarm;
when the sun is shining
and the blue sky comes alive,
when you can sit back and take your ease
somewhere peaceful and special,
you feel the most lucky to be where you are,
having the time of your life.

When you see something everyday,
when you live somewhere all your life,
you can easily take something
or somewhere for granted,
when you are happy and content,
the minutes and the hours
can seem to fly away –
however, just as moments come
and they go like a flash of light,
when we all learn to harness
the energy and the feeling of our surroundings
it is then that we can make moments
and memories last forever,
and just like our genetic memory
be forever imprinted.

I have Georgia on my mind;
I have Tennessee in my heart;
I have a pocket of dollars and dimes;
I have the light of an American angel
shining on me like a star;
I have the accents and the voices
that I know so well
echoing through my consciousness
like a choir singing in a church;
I have the distant sight of Lookout Mountain
still fascinating me from afar.

I have walked over old battlefields,
and paid my respects to the lost
at memorials erected to remember the fallen –
those who gave their lives
to preserve the right of everyone
to enjoy the gift of true freedom.

The United States of America
is one country made up of fifty
wonderfully diverse states;
the heart of every American
beats proud and strong;
the United States of America
is a symbol of hope and prosperity
in so many ways;
every state of America
is a piece of an epic
and breathtaking unfinished puzzle –
and, to me, the states of Georgia and Tennessee
symbolize what makes
the United States of America truly great,
and there isn’t a minute that goes by
when I do not think of my home in 30741.

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