night

My Poem ‘Five’

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

Some people work all through the night;
some people have to get up before the sun rises,
and work all day;
some people have to wear a specific uniform,
or a particular kind of attire-
like a shirt and tie;
some people have to fight through busy traffic
in a car, on a bus, on a bike, on foot,
that is the same every day in every way.

There are more jobs in this world
than most people know about;
there are more ways to pay your way in life
than can be imagined;
there are jobs that can keep someone dry
and warm on a rainy day;
there are some jobs that on a sunny day
you can take great pleasure,
just because you are able to be out and about;
there are jobs that you have to travel to and from by train;
there are jobs that when you try to describe them
they are hard to convey.

People have lots that they have to work with;
people have lots of coworkers who they have to work alongside;
people have jobs that they sometimes find hard to live with;
people have jobs that they know they will be doing
until the day they die.

You are truly blessed in your life
if you can do and enjoy a job that you do,
which you love doing;
I envy those people who can be
who they want to be all of the time-
to have the chance to live their dream,
some people would do anything.

The perfect job and profession,
to me, is one that does not pay the most,
and is not all about how it is valued
by the amount of zeroes that follow
the pound, or the dollar, sign.

Finding a job and having a job that you like doing
and care about is a rare thing to have indeed;
when you have not had a job and you want a job,
any job, you will do all that you need;
some jobs that people do constantly reinvigorate them,
make them feel a sense of achievement,
and make them feel alive.
If you are someone who genuinely likes, or even loves,
what they do for a living,
think of it as a walk in the park,
or a steady countryside drive-
whatever you do, wherever you work,
whether you are on a shift from seven until seven,
from sunrise to sunset,
or behind a desk or a table every day of the week,
from nine til five.

My Poem ‘The Phoenix’

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

It was inevitable that it would happen,
it always happens;
it was always going to end and begin again this way;
it was inevitable that I would be burned alive
and come back to life,
because that is the pattern;
it will always be me dying to save myself,
and then rising again from the flames
with the same face, the same name,
the same heart, the same soul,
until it really is my Earth-bound last and final day.

Every time I come back from the dead
I lose nearly everything that I had,
but I do retain every detail of my past lives’ memories;
every time my world crumbles and turns to ash,
I return to the place I know,
the people I love, and the thing that is as a part of me
as I am of it- and that is my notebook and my poetry.

You always think that things will go on forever, until they end;
you always think that people will stay with you, until they leave;
you always think that you will always be someone’s hope,
inspiration, life, love, and best friend;
you always think that you know and have seen everything,
until you learn and you see something that you cannot believe.

My world imploded, and then exploded;
my identity was stripped from me and thrown away;
my life had to crash and then be rebooted;
my past, my present, my future, my horizons,
were all sent into flux, and blown away on the wind,
to be replaced by a blank page, an unknown,
and a feeling of loss and uncertainty.

Where once there was something rich, deep, bright, and hopeful,
there is now nothing to be found;
where once there was fate, destiny, reason,
the answer to everything in the entire universe,
there is now a hole in the shape of something wonderful,
special, and profound.

Night has become day,
day has become night;
everything felt simple,
even when it was vastly complicated in every way-
as long as I kept myself, in part, hidden in the dark
I would always end up turning my face away from the light.

Things ended because I was stupid;
I was ripped apart and burned,
because what happened was too far gone for anyone to fix;
I was everything that I have always hated,
but now I have died, I have been reincarnated,
I have been reconstituted, I have been tested,
I have been regenerated, I have risen again from my own flames,
and I am starting again and fighting my instincts
of continually being the human embodiment
of the mythological bird known as “The Phoenix”.