Every day I see puzzle pieces strewn around me - which is fine because I have always loved a good mystery... every day my interest is peaked with fascination by questions - those I perceive and read emanating from people, places, experiences, circumstances, and situations, like a nectar to a bee... every day I find myself following the breadcrumbs left behind by everyone who may not wish to have the truth about something laid bare for all to see... every day I take a leap and I allow my instincts to drive the thoughts of my mind at full speed... every day I look and I always see something that intrigues me and invigorates my curiosity... every day I unlock internal doors to inner places, like a locksmith of multiple keys - but sometimes when I do I find myself in rooms filled with the things of people that sometimes feel out of place and out of context, like a mismatch of fragments that you sometimes find interlaced within a dream... every day I decode one decrypted message, and the next I see a gap within a tapestry and I have to find out what and where to find the missing puzzle pieces.
mystery
My Poem “Houdini”
Everybody loves magic…
everybody lives to be bedazzled…
everybody who sees a magician
or an illusionist perform
an illusion or a magic trick
often cannot believe what
they have just witnessed…
everybody lives to see
something that they have
never seen before –
even those who have been
around the world and have experienced
things that are indescribable find
themselves, at one time or another
during their lives, captivated
by the gift of someone able to show
an audience of one, or one of a thousand,
something unbelievable,
something borderline supernatural,
something that looks so simple
but is in reality complicated
on so many levels, and something
that is a part of a tradition
that is not just exclusive
to humanity, that has also been
observed in the animal kingdom:
the art and the act of surprise,
of wonder, and of defying expectations.
Stories and mythologies
from all around the world
are filled with tales of characters
that have certain unexplainable skills…
legends have for centuries been written
about wizards and magicians who became
synonymous and memorable
because of who they were
and what they were believed to have done…
characters like “Merlin”, who is always
closely associated with the legendary
King Arthur have become mythical
in their own right because of the mystery
of who they were that still follows them
and cloaks them like a veil.
In this day and age,
just as back the medieval days
of kings, knights, swords in stones,
and ladies in lakes, people
are still drawn to experiences
that cannot be explained
without some sense of loss as a result…
even those people who ask how a magic trick
is done do not really want to know
because it is the not knowing of an audience
that is one of the most essential parts
that makes a magician want to keep doing
the same trick and the same routine
over and over again.
We need magic in the world
now more than ever,
because it is by being ensorcelled
by a gifted magician that we can
let our imagination run free…
thank god for magic and thank god
for magicians – who are wizards
in their own right – who some of us
know of, or may have grown up with,
like Derren Brown, Paul Daniels,
David Blaine, Penn and Teller,
David Copperfield, who learned from,
and who followed in the footsteps of,
one of the greatest and one of
the most spellbinding magicians
of all time: the one, the only,
Harry Houdini.
My Poem ‘As it comes’
Every day when the sun rises,
every day when we greet
the brand new day in our own way,
every day when the thought of something
in particular hypnotizes –
every day, no matter what dark clouds
may hover above our heads,
it is important for each and every one of us
to hold our heads up-high
and say to ourselves that we will get through
whatever we face and make the best of our lives,
come what may.
If there were no mysteries
then there would be no questions;
if there were no questions
then there would be no potential for adventure;
if there were no adventure
then there would be no wonderful
experiences and life-lessons;
if there were no new experiences to be had
and new lessons to be learned
then our lives would not be as they are –
our lives would be a life in a day,
and there would not be a constant time-machine
that allows us all for limited times a day
to jump from the present to the past
and from the past to the future, et cetera…
Everything changes in life –
it should, and it must;
everything came from something –
we, the Earth, the stars, the galaxy,
all came from the stuff of stars and cosmic dust;
everything and everybody starts small
and then grows towards the light of their potential;
everything only happens once –
the universe does not repeat itself often,
and no matter the similarities that can be found,
even throughout nature,
one thing I know for sure
is that the world we know
and the world behind the invisible curtain
that surrounds us all can only be the way it is
because of those who are exceptional
but who do not realize that they are special.
Begin and end your day with a smile;
try not to worry too much about what you can’t control;
if and when you can be yourself and show your inner-love;
life is a test filled with many trials;
do what you do best with all your heart and all your soul;
keep going, keep positive, keep smiling,
keep living your life –
and no matter what happens,
don’t be afraid to take a running-jump
and don’t just take life as it comes.
My Poem ‘Forensic’
Mystery, like love,
in my opinion,
is the most potent drug
known to man,
and also the only one
capable of delivering
someone to the deepest of states
of pure intoxication;
mystery haunts the mind
and walks the Earth silently
until the time is right
for its voice to be heard;
mystery makes detectives of us all –
however, the greatest of mysteries
have long-since remained unsolved
and their secrets live on
in the prism of history,
just as the intrigue of their story
will continue to inspire and enthrall
many for all eternity.
There seems to be a constant struggle
between order and disorder;
there are times in life
when something happens
and the only response you can give is: why?;
there are some people who are incapable
of staying on the right side of the law;
there must be something in the genes, I think,
that motivates and compels someone
to commit any crime.
Every whisper contains a seed of truth
that is only a minute part of a much larger story;
every detail of every-thing is evidence
of a structure of moments that goes deep,
as well as towers high;
everybody leaves a trace
that can be followed forward in time,
as well as back;
everywhere there are things
that some people can so easily miss and not see;
everyone is gravity-bound by something
that they live because of and are made whole by;
every instant and every moment
we leave something behind us
that we do not realize,
because time goes by so fast.
A state of being is psychological;
a state of reproducing is biological;
a state of acting without thinking is instinctual;
everybody trips, everyone falls;
everybody utters words of inspiration
from time to time over their lips;
everyone at one time or another
hears an empowering call;
every mystery has an answer;
every magician and illusionist
has their signature magic-trick;
every unknown gives someone a reason to wonder;
every puzzle can be solved
if you look for the coincidences
that are not just coincidences –
because in reality all things are clues
in the fascinating world of forensics.
My Poem ‘The Mayfly Life’
Every life is a short life;
every thing has a shelf-life;
every journey is finite;
for every morning
there must be a night;
every artist has a muse;
everybody has always
got something to lose;
for every mystery
there are always clues;
everybody at some point
imagines what it would be like
to walk in somebody else’s shoes.
Everyone has a shadow;
every new life is a beacon of light;
everyone has a clock
ticking down slowly to zero;
everyone has a secret birthright;
every day we listen;
every day we speak;
every day we read the written;
every day we all must trust
and believe that our lives and we
are meant to be as we are;
every thing that can be created and destroyed
should be marveled at with awe like a star,
because though the memory
and the spirit of something may survive
and live forever after death,
the shell and the body
that surrounds and protects something
has but a short time
until it must break apart
and reveal the true energy inside
that has been waiting so long
to emerge from the dark.
Like the light of the moon
on a star-lit winter night;
like a beam of sunlight
bursting through the clouds
after a shower of rain has fell;
like the spell that changes you forever
that is “love at first-sight”;
like the wish that comes true
after you hope with all your heart
and throw a token of you
into life’s celestial wishing-well;
so much is evanescent,
so much is momentary,
transient, temporary, and brief,
the rules of life,
and the time that we all
have to do what we must,
can only be compared
to the sight and the life of a tree
and its falling leaves
that change over time –
and like every living thing,
and like every living person,
everything has a reason to be…
even though their life-span
in comparison shares so much
with the life and the fate
of the ephemeral mayfly.
My Poem ‘A Study in Starlight’
Everybody knows what it is like
to stay up all night;
everybody knows that experience
of looking out of the window
and watching the stars in the sky
arch through the dark
and mesmerize with their light;
everybody knows what it is like
to stay wide awake
with something, or perhaps someone,
on their mind;
everybody knows that you cannot tell
what will come from what you see around you
and from what you may find inside you
when it is just you
and your future in front of you,
and when what you choose to do next
may be the most defining moment
of your entire life.
Countless writers, artists,
deep-thinkers, and students
who every day attend the university of life,
and its many campuses,
have been driven by the need
to stay in the groove that they feel comfortable in
and create and generate a work by their own hand;
a lorry driver knows what it is like
to drive all through the night
getting to where they need to get to;
a true detective knows what it is like
to have a tantalizing mystery
and a question in front of them
that they believe if anyone can solve it they can;
everyone alive who has ever been told “no”
knows that the harder you work at something,
and the more you believe in yourself,
you can inspire all kinds of energy
and strength to rise from out of the blue.
There is an infinite story being written
in the sky above and all throughout life;
there are infinite characters
with a distinctive voice
making themselves be heard –
even those who communicate with the language of silence;
even someone who is skeptical of the supernatural
knows that there are many forms of astonishing miracles
that some people witness every day
that in themselves are “magic”;
there is no greater push to do something,
or think in a certain way,
than the motivation of fright;
everyone has, at some point in their life,
had an instinct of a not-so-secret sixth sense;
when something looks, reads, or sounds
like it is missing that indefinable “something” –
that is because sometimes some things
need a fresh breath, shot, and spark,
to be infused into them before they are done,
to make something that is great truly epic.
Life is a constant study of seeing,
learning, and understanding,
that doesn’t end until it ends;
in my own personal philosophy,
if you feel like there is more to see or more to do
you are always correct and absolutely right;
if you have the choice to be yourself,
why for a second would you choose to pretend;
the clues and the curiosities
that many people find as they live their lives,
to those of us who embrace a question
as if it were a bona fide religion,
are what keep us up all night
looking through a window
studying the starlight.
My Poem ‘The Great Detective’
The great detective knows the streets of his city
like he knows the indelible lines on the palms of his hands;
the great detective sees the world and its people
as if they are an intricately-interwoven and infinite puzzle;
the great detective walks with knowledge and conviction,
with a mystery to be solved in his pocket,
and he knows of nothing that he has not already considered,
thought about, and played out in his mind in a hundred ways,
and because he sees and knows only
solutions and answers to every question,
the great detective walks with phenomenal confidence;
the great detective is not oblivious to breaking a sweat
and fighting for what he believes is right,
should the time and need arise –
however, he strives to find a way to win the day
without having to encounter, or get involved,
in any sort of tussle of trouble.
The great detective is always thinking,
and his imagination and his thought process
is boundless and second to none;
the great detective has a vast palace of memory
in which he keeps the things he holds the most precious;
the great detective has a mind as fast,
and a tongue as quick, as a bullet from a gun;
the great detective has seen wonders,
and has met people who exhibit traits of humanity
from all ends of the spectrum,
but he is still proud to call himself
a member of the human race –
however, he believes that when people do start listening
to what he has to say he will be the saviour of all of us.
The great detective believes above all else
that through logic and reasoning
even the improbable can have a reason for being
that can be simplified to a simple sentence;
the great detective is not afraid to act
and think simultaneously, and adapt on the fly;
the great detective thrives on the rush of a new experience;
the great detective knows he is good, perhaps great, at what he does –
so when asked if he is modest about his gifts he does not have to lie.
The great detective can conjure up a deduction in the blink of an eye;
the great detective has seen things that are so beyond words
and description, the only other way to classify them
would be to think of them as magic;
the great detective himself cannot not pigeon-holed,
nor his ego or self-belief subdued –
although some have failed when they have tried;
the great detective is like a force of nature,
and even to himself, when he looks in the mirror at his reflection,
or when he considers the most perfect of callings for himself,
he always returns to the most elementary conclusion
at the end of his deductions:
and that is that, beyond anything or anybody that he could be,
he is, and was always meant to be, who he is,
and who he will always be – the great detective.
Mark The Poet 