music

My Poem “The Eighties”

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

I grew up in the 1980s…
I grew up in the decade when
the world was blessed with the best
and with the most memorable days of their lives…
when I think of the 1980s and the time of my childhood,
I look back with awe and with a nostalgic longing
to return to those days –
even if only for a short time…
I can still remember living, breathing, growing,
and enjoying every one of the gifts of humanity
that were ever-present and essential…
I, like many, still vividly remember what I saw,
what I heard, and what I felt when I was a child –
what I was fortunate to have seen, heard, and felt
for the first time, at the moment that
their star of influence began to rise
and instantly started to impact
and change the world forevermore…
television, movies, music, games, books –
the characters, the vehicles, the fashions,
the songs and the soundtracks
that continue to stand the test of time –
that to this day are still re-watched,
replayed, rediscovered, and renewed
for a brand new generation…
to me, there is nothing like nostalgia…
to me, there is nothing like revisting
the precious memories of your youth…
there is something about certain times
in our collective history that resonates
with some people on an emotional
and on an almost cellular level…
there is something special about remembering
the things we used to watch,
the things we used to listen to,
and in the ways that we used to enjoy them…
there is something wonderful, heart-racing,
exhilarating, and magical about using
our imagination as a vehicle to go back in time,
like the Delorean time-machine
from the Back to the Future movies,
and in a small way reliving decades-old memories –
and even though I am now in my thirties
and my childhood now feels like a life-time ago,
I still love thinking back, I still loving watching back,
and I still love using the songs that I remember from my youth
to take me back and give me a rush of euphoric recollection,
like the feeling of returning home:
the same overwhelming sense of belonging and joy
that I ways feel when I think back to the 1980s.

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My Poem “Silent Light”

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

The sun does not make a sound to our ears –
and yet it has a voice and a song
that it sings every second on the same frequency
that it has been broadcasting and generating
for 4.6 billion years…
the Earth beneath our feet is constantly spinning
and in a perpetual state of motion –
and though when we are standing still
we believe Earth to be stationary
it is in fact traveling through space
at 67,000 miles per hour…
the heart in our chest
beats inaudibly even to ourselves –
and it is only when we use our sense of touch
in conjunction with our inner perception
of the rhythmic beauty of our life-sustaining
organ and instrument that we can understand
how precious our heart-beats are
and how important they are in realizing
how delicate, fragile, and fleeting life is
and why there are no gifts as amazing
as that of being loved and alive…
the sounds that we hear are echoes,
vibrations, and interactions,
between many individual sources all playing at-once –
even those things that orbit in the vacuum of space
do not do so silently, however as when we want
to hear those things that are so powerful
and mean so much to all of us
sometimes we have to use our senses in the right way
in order to fully hear the voices
and the sounds of the silent light.

My Poem “Jazz”

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

Music is in all of our blood…
Sometimes our blood runs fast
and sometimes our blood runs slow…
Music can sometimes be misunderstood…
What we listen to, where, when, and how
always informs and influences our thoughts
and our emotions, sometimes more than we know…
A piece of music can create a mood…
A song can be a powerful artistic muse…
A particular instrument has a distinctive magic…
A synonymous voice can bring about
a wave of peace to a world of panic…
All music is a part of the collective human soul…
Not all styles of music appeal to every human heart,
but everybody has experienced moments in their life
when music has spoken to them like nothing else before…
Music can be a cure…
Music can teach a two left-footed person how to dance…
Music can transform someone beyond the limits of words…
Music will never die,
and one of the most rambunctious accents of music
undeniably has to be the swing, the vibe,
the energy, and the favourite music
of cafes and bars from L.A. to New Orleans: Jazz.

My Poem “The Golden Season”

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

Golden light beams down from above…
A feeling of comfort floods the air…
Brown leaves tumble and are carried by the gentle breeze…
Change is everywhere…
The ground is wet, making it slippery under foot…
Things look the same – but, as with every new day,
differences surround and reveal themselves to me…
It is a magical time of the year…
New stories are being written,
as Old tales are being retold…
The cycle of nature continues
and now it is the season of Autumn’s turn
to fall upon everyone like a flurry of red leaves…
This season of transition will herald the arrival
of one of our world’s greatest natural wonders…
This season will be when all the instruments
and when all the notes and the chords will be played
by the ever-present players of nature’s orchestra,
whose music will crescendo higher and higher
until the last leaves have danced and fallen
in time with the golden season’s symphony
until it’s last breath.

My Poem “Rhapsody”

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

The voices of everybody over-lap…
one minute the music is jazz,
the next the beautiful melody of a piano…
the echoes of a chorus of sounds
are carried through the air
like the waves of an ocean…
there are moments of time that run slow
and there are those that race past
and then are gone again in a flash…
there is a dance of people,
of language, of emotions,
of noise, of stillness, of silence…
the beats of a heart,
the thoughts of a mind,
the air and the ambiance
that flows gently like a stream
can gradually become a waterfall –
the place, the people, the music,
the moment that is filled
with an infinite number of instants
that make them who and what they are
is what is at the heart
and what is the true essence
of what poetry, to me, is all about…
the best poetry comes from the heart of a poet
who feels a moment of time and an experience
so deeply and so profoundly
that it can only be expressed as a rhapsody.

My Poem “The Piano”

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

Even now I can still hear
the beautiful melody
of that piano concerto play…
An unknown melody
that instantly made me smile,
daydream, and feel
at my ease in every way…
Something amazing,
like the gift of an angel,
that filled my mind,
my heart, my soul…
A feeling of contentment
that made me imagine
as if I were below
a dark sky filled with stars
and standing upon the soft sand
of a beach, hand-in-hand
with the one I love…
I was truly touched by the music
that I heard, the music that I felt…
The music that I can still hear…
The beautiful solo performance
by a single piano player…
It’s meaning to me
is far beyond what I know…
I don’t know who the player is
and I don’t know what the name
of the piece is –
but I do know how I feel
every time I hear
the music of the piano.

My Poem “Sax in the city”

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , ,

Hearing the sound of a saxophone
being played on Cherry Street
today was unexpected…
hearing somebody play a piece of music,
or sing a song, for the love of playing
and being heard by others is truly inspiring…
every performer I have ever heard performing
has been to me like watching
a magician perform some trick of magic…
when you hear a particular song
at the right time
you can’t stop yourself from smiling,
crying, or feeling something
that makes your daydreams echo freely…
music that touches my soul always stays with me –
just as the song that I heard this morning still is…
I am so grateful for the gift of music,
and I am so thankful to the talented musician
that I heard this morning on Cherry Street
playing his sax in the city.

(The saxophone player was playing “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck)