missing
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.
My Poem “This time of the year”
This time of the year
should be filled with peace,
love, joy, and festivities;
however, invariably,
this time of the year
also sees the rise of feelings
and emotions that instantly
bring some people to tears.
At this time of the year
people tend to reach out
and they want to show
the people that they love
and care about just how much
they mean to them;
however, unfortunately,
not everybody who loves someone
is fortunate enough to be able
to have who they love safe and near.
At this time of the year
there are always loved ones
who are separated by a seemingly
insurmountable distance
or by a barrier between them
that keeps them apart.
At this time of the year
it is always hard to find
the words to describe
that which by their nature
transcends language, distance,
memory, and time –
because so much of what
makes life so special
for those who are fully able
to enjoy it and to cherish it
is encapsulated at certain
times of the year,
and most notably at Christmas time.
This time of the year
should be celebratory…
this time of the year
should be wonderful…
this time of the year
should be gift worthy;
however, the truth is
that this time of the year
is not everybody’s favourite
time of the year
because they may be
missing someone in particular,
because they may be
missing something that they have lost,
because they may be missing
the irreplaceable,
because they may be missing
the times when things
appeared to be easy, simple, and clear –
and that is why it is more important
than ever to be extra sensitive
to everybody you meet
at this time of the year,
because everybody is going through
uniquely personal things in their life,
and especially during the “holiday season”
that is this time of the year.
My Poem ‘Missing Letters’
Messages can be exchanged
in an instant;
feelings can be communicated
with a heart-beat;
some letters
that never reached
their intended recipient
and destination
could be those
of the highest importance;
gone are the days
when you would literally
have to wait weeks for a single reply –
however, I still believe
that the most powerful of contacts
that there could ever be
are those that are made
by using your feet.
First-person perspective,
face-to-face,
eye-to-eye and infinitely expressive
is always the best,
especially when it does not wholly
require the assistance of a satellite
orbiting in space –
but in this day and age,
we who are living here on Earth
are so lucky to have
all the means of technology at our fingertips.
I must admit that I too would feel bereft
if I could not speak what I am thinking,
as well as express myself
via my facial-expressions –
like the blowing
the one I love a goodnight kiss.
The written word and the printed white page
is a thing of beauty, to me –
but the power of text and the images
of a back-lit and bright screen,
I must admit, are, to me,
a draw, and to one
I am like that a moth to a flame.
I adore books and stories
written be fantastic and phenomenal writers,
but what you can see and share online
on the internet is an incredibly evocative,
vivid, and epic, world-changing domain.
I recently read a news story online
about the discovery of an amazing find:
a leather trunk from the 17th century
had been unearthed that contained
over two thousand letters –
most of the letters that have been translated
tell stories of a people
and what they were feeling and thinking
at a particularly eventful
and momentous time in their life,
while most of them thus far
still remain a mystery
as to what they say –
and I truly believe that such a discovery
is one of a treasure
that may never again come to light,
because those letters are fragments of time.
Letters can be lost, misplaced, forgotten about
sent out across the sea in a bottle –
however, messages that are sent electronically
follow you wherever you go
and are like coin thrown into a well
that never reaches the watery bottom.
Our electronic messages are like our own
digital ghosts and shadows
that we are responsible for;
our electronic images and profiles
can be seen by everyone and anyone,
24-hours a day, from the last light of dusk
to the first light of a new dawn.
There is a lot to be thankful for
about living in the times that we do;
we have discovered answers to questions
that our ancestors prayed to god
that they wished they knew;
there are things that we all do well –
but we as a species, in my opinion,
can all do better;
we may all find what we have been looking for
all our lives if we too were
to somehow miraculously discover,
or rediscover, buried over time
a treasure trove
of lost or missing letters.
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.
My Poem ‘Missing Words’
We read in sentences, not words;
we sometimes see words that are not there,
but are meant to be there;
we sometimes hear in our mind the unheard;
we all make connections
and take leaps of logic and imagination
when trying to make sense of something
that makes us feel, think, jump with joy, and care.
We all give a part of ourselves
to what we create, read, love, and see;
we all see and sculpt shapes of the clouds in the sky
in our mind and vision that resemble things
from our hopes and dreams;
we all take trips of instinct and intuition
when thinking about what is and what could be;
we can all draw the shape of a heart and share it,
and receive it, and instantly know what it means.
Our brains and our minds are more powerful
and more capable of navigating a path than we believe,
even one that might appear treacherous and impassable;
our accumulated knowledge
is deeper and richer than buried treasure,
and we sometimes know more than we think;
our individual way of seeing hope in chaos
is something that is truly magical;
our gift of seeing things before we see them in front of us
is an unbelievably incredible source of fantastic vision
and inspiration that take us anywhere and show us anything
with a blink.
Missing words are like puzzle pieces that we fill-in silently;
missing words are like invisible bridges
that come to life naturally and give meaning and feeling,
and they capture something’s spirit, like poetry;
missing words are always found,
and they always make themselves heard –
like nature does at sunset, with the evening song of all birds;
and if and when the moment calls for it,
you and your amazing mind will instantly seek out
and reach for the right words and they will be what were once
the missing words.
My Poem ‘The Lost Notebook’
Something just doesn’t feel right;
something about me feels missing;
I have an idea for a poem that I want to write,
but something strange and unlike me has happened:
I don’t have my poetry notebook,
I do not have my pen –
I can feel the creation and formation of a piece of art
beginning to play, inspired by the world around me,
to which I am listening,
but I have no way to make my thoughts real
so that that can be written and read on a page.
I feel like I am in a daze, and I cannot concentrate, or settle down;
I feel like I am without my heart and soul –
a blank page and a lost poet,
wishing more than anything
that he had a blank page in front of him to write upon,
as is always, usually, the way.
I feel like a conductor without an orchestra;
I feel like a driver trying to drive a car
without a steering-wheel;
I feel like a soldier trying to climb an insurmountable wall;
I feel like the landlord of an empty bar;
I feel like the world is a dream and cannot be real;
I feel like I can hear a phone ringing loudly,
but I cannot reach for it to answer its call.
My notebook is special to me.
My notebook is my silent microphone, my inner-megaphone –
the closest thing that I have to a diary;
my notebook is one of many, but it is unique;
my notebook, and my notebooks, have been with me,
and I have lived and experienced things in life,
and I have written on every page of every one
of them every day of every week.
Fear strikes me deep:
‘where is my notebook?’,
‘what has happened to it?’, I ask;
‘did I leave it somewhere?,
‘did someone take it?’ –
I’m sure I brought it with me in my bag?
However, then it hits me,
then I realize and I remember what I did,
what has happened, and where my notebook is:
my notebook is sitting on my bed, in my bedroom,
with my pen on top of it,
waiting for me to open it up to the next blank page
and write some new poetry.
I feel stupid;
I feel foolish;
I feel like an idiot;
I feel like a gasping fish.
I feel like I am in a boat, on a river,
without a paddle, because I left it on the shore behind me;
I feel like I am showing how different I am to everyone
for the first time, and everybody knows that I am not myself,
and as if everyone is all at-once looking at me.
When I finally returned home,
and I opened the door of my bedroom,
I immediately caught a glimpse of my notebook,
and I saw that a ray of light from the sun
was shining through my bedroom window
directly on to the cover;
as soon as I saw it, the frown that I had been wearing
immediately turned into a smile,
and I picked up my notebook with both hands
and I held it as if I were holding in my hands
the face of a lover.
It might sound irrational;
it might sound strange to miss, and to fear losing,
something that to a lot of other people
is just a replaceable book –
but, to me, losing something that is connected to me,
and which I feel like is a part of me, I take incredibly personal.
To me, my poetry is like my child –
and that is why I never want to lose any notebook;
but this is the story of how and when,
I, one day, for a short time, had to live the life of a poet,
with a lost notebook, and no pen.
Mark The Poet 