memory
A Poem A Day #424: My God Father
A Poem A Day #349: Memory Box
My Poem “Talisman”
Something to remind you of somebody far away - a loved one, a friend, someone who you think about every day... something as simple as an object that somebody gave you for safe keeping and also to remember them by... something personal - like a watch passed down and worn on the wrist of generations of ancestors and their descendants - that symbolizes a way back through time... something like a mantra that is repeated over and over again to open a door inwards and outwards... something like a candle that we use when the power goes out and we have to use the only precious light that we have to see the path before us... something like a photograph taken when visiting somewhere indescribable and meaningful with someone who is a daily hand to hold and a guide back to solid ground when we find ourselves far from land... something that gives us a feeling of hope, optimism, as well as a forward momentum - because to us they will always be a talisman.
A Poem A Day #303: The Great Detective
A Poem A Day #247: Never Forget
A Poem A Day #233: Once Seen Never Forgotten
My Poem “Screenshot”
Life is a livestream without a pause button... when something happens we can't commit every detail of every moment to memory... life sometimes feels like it is in a state of fast-forward... when someone scrolls through the posts of someone else who appears to be living the life that they have always wanted sometimes people can feel envy - however life is filled with more depth of perspective and colour than any resolution of screen could ever display perfectly... when a photograph is taken a thousand words could be used to describe what the two dimensions apparently show - but to go beyond a static image and dive into what preceeded it and what came after it you have to look to what appears in the background that may not be as easy to see, but take it from me it is there that you will see a picture's true poetry... there is no way yet to recall what the first face that we saw after we were born was, nor is there yet a way to know what the first sound that we heard was, nor who the first voice that we heard belonged to; but, make no mistake, our entire life of experiences are all saved within our brains - the good, the bad, the tragic, and the funny - and if at the end of everything each of us do indeed see our entire life flash before our eyes so fast that every moment merges together into a burst of bright light, be sure to try and do what people do every day when they see something on their phone that they think is worth capturing: remember what you can, while you can, and if necessary take a screenshot.
My Poem “Missing Time”
Since the start of this world-shattering pandemic I know deep in my soul that I have missed the sound of a particular source of music - a soundtrack, a beat, a rhythm of life that can be heard, felt, and seen within your minds eye, whether it be morning, noon, or night: the same pulse of inspiration that first surged within me at the very moment when I knew that I was born to be a poet. What I love about writing and what keeps me coming back to the blank page time and again is the same thing that I miss about sitting in a café surrounded by people, before the days of mandatory masks and before compulsory social distancing. The thrill of the unknown, the magic of the instantaneous, the order and the chaos that to me always made sense and which I could always easily pull into focus: all that being an artist is all about... you can't plan for it, you can only create it when you feel it within you boiling away with such ferocity that you know it is about to explode - which is why artists need to capture what occurs to them before whatever idea forms combusts into dust and becomes as spectral as a ghost. I yearn to go back in time... I wish that I could return to a place at a point in the past where and when I truly believed every moment would always last... I still cannot believe that we are all living in the world that greets my senses and compels my thoughts and my emotions so overwhelmingly... I wish that I could do something, I wish that I could write something, I wish that I could imagine something that might serve to transport everybody away from our current stark reality - perhaps to a moment of peace, joy, and love that the world once enjoyed, or to a time in the future when I know the memory of our current present will not be as potent. I have personal places and I have particular times where and when I return to within my thoughts and within my dreams that mean the world to me that feel so close to me that I could reach out and grasp them: perfect moments the like of which everybody has, which we all would do anything to get back to, which we never stop missing and which are among life's most precious of blessings.
Mark The Poet 