This episode is a part of Mark’s “A Journey Through Poetry” – a personal reflection of his life as a poet, a writer, and an author – in which he recites a different poem from every one of his poetry collections. In this episode Mark recites his poem ‘World Between Worlds’, from his poetry collection The Comeback Kid, and he gives some insight and some context into why he was inspired to write this poem in particular.
poem
My Poem “The Realms of Possibility”
The more you live, the more you grow,
the more you see, the more you hear,
the more you experience things changing
in profound, considerable, and unexpected ways,
the more you become aware and accustomed
to the insatiably complex nature of the world…
the more you learn about yourself
and the way things are and have always been,
the more you start to understand
and appreciate the things that have happened -
both the good and the bad -
that everything and everyone
has in common with each other…
the more you believe in the power of a person
to be able to change their mind
about what they have always believed,
the more that you realise that people
are not just driven by instinct alone;
because sometimes some people have such
an outpouring of empathy and compassion
for others whom they don’t know
that they even surprise themselves
and their level of charity and generosity
as a result can even surprise and surpass
any and every expectation that they
might have had of their own actions…
the more you do to educate yourself
on what is true and what is false,
on what can be described and what can be proven,
the more you learn that so much
of what we all do and what we have always done
comes down to what we are capable of sacrificing
in order to achieve a sense of purpose in our lives -
and sometimes the price we are faced with
we deem to be too high,
while sometimes some people find
that have no choice but to do what must be done…
the more you do not judge the person next to you,
or the person who is just trying to do their best
to find out why they are who and what they are,
the more that you will see that nothing and nobody
will ever truly fit the model of who they are
sometimes told they are expected to be -
because even those people who attempt
to publicly emulate someone else
behind closed doors everyone is their own self
with their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions
on things and on people, but sometimes
everybody has to keep their own council
on what to say and what not to say;
however, there are some people who
believe that it is their responsibility
to challenge, to argue, and to defend
each and every arena of self-expression,
because there are so many places in the world
where the freedom to say, and to be
who you want to be, is not a guarantee…
the more you accept that the more you know
the more you will be able to make something
that much more interesting and meaningful to you,
the more you will experience a new and a sometimes
more nuanced view of everything and everyone,
and the more that you see the cracks in the facade
of those who portray themselves as someone
and something seemingly untouchable
to the overriding principles and the laws of nature -
those described, as well as those intrinsic
to life as we know it on this planet -
the more you can come to realise that nothing
you can imagine is ever truly
outside of the realms of possibility.
A Journey Through Poetry #42: Where It All Started
This episode is a part of Mark’s “A Journey Through Poetry” – a personal reflection of his life as a poet, a writer, and an author – in which he recites a different poem from every one of his poetry collections. In this episode Mark recites his poem ‘Where It All Started’, from his poetry collection Poet of the Multiverse, and he gives some insight and some context into why he was inspired to write this poem in particular.
A Journey Through Poetry #41: Dreams Of The Moment
This episode is a part of Mark’s “A Journey Through Poetry” – a personal reflection of his life as a poet, a writer, and an author – in which he recites a different poem from every one of his poetry collections. In this episode Mark recites his poem ‘Dreams Of The Moment’, from his poetry collection The Rambler, and he gives some insight and some context into why he was inspired to write this poem in particular.
My Poem “The Sounds of Earth”
If looked down upon from space
our planet, Earth, would be seen
to be a shining blue sphere
teaming with possibilities
and full of potential;
however, you would never be able
to see everything and everyone
that exists on our beautiful world from orbit
because you would be too removed -
but if you were able to listen to what humanity
broadcasts, transmits, and has shared
every moment of every day,
for over half a century now,
then you might find it hard to understand
everything that everyone is saying to one another;
however, if you were to travel farther from Earth -
say fifty light-years away -
then you would be able to receive
the transmissions of humanity
that left our planet fifty years ago,
and it would be like
discovering a message in a bottle,
or an audio signal of an era in time,
that travelled at the speed of light from its source
to be heard by anyone or anything that
was listening in Earth’s direction.
Earth has always been a world full of stories,
of civilisations, of beliefs, and our ideas
about why things are the way that they are,
and Earth has always been a world of invention
and of dreamers who hope to be given the answer
to the question of whether we are alone in the universe…
for all of human existence, groups of individuals -
such as scientists, artists, musicians,
and believers in a particular religion -
have sought to reach out their grasp
and touch the face of the unknown,
and reveal the truth about the meaning of life
and why we are here;
and since we have had the means and the resources
to send living beings into space to relay back
what awaits us far beyond the clouds -
from dogs, to chimpanzees, to humans -
as well as robotic sojourners capable
of sending back images of the planets
and the moons of our solar system,
as well as photographs of the extraordinary
phenomenon of our galaxy,
humanity has been uncovering
the history of the universe
as well as the possibilities of reality.
In 1977, two gold disks were launched
along with their respective Voyager spacecraft
containing a greeting from the people of Earth,
as well as images and depictions of
human anatomy and the building blocks of life,
the location of the sun and our solar system,
and also recordings of some of the sounds
that can be found and heard on our planet -
such as the sound of waves crashing,
birdsong, whale song, and a selection of
some of the human languages that our species
has evolved to use for communication
between one another for centuries…
even now, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 -
not to mention all the other probes
we have sent out into space -
continue their mission and their journey
into the great unknown,
hopefully to be one day found
by another, similar, space-faring, intelligent,
innovative, and inquisitive race of beings
who might wish to see whom it was that
chose to take a leap of faith and send
an invitation to a fellow member
of the galactic community to visit a beautiful planet
that is full of people, plants, animals,
and other things that need to be seen and heard
to be truly believed and understood;
however, it’s entirely possible that
we have already been visited by an intelligent
interplanetary extraterrestrial species of explorers,
who were drawn to our world a long time ago
and who have already bore witness
to the wonders of our planet,
and who have long since become obsessed
with the infinite number of the sounds of Earth.
A Journey Through Poetry #40: Tales of Wonder Lands
This episode is a part of Mark’s “A Journey Through Poetry” – a personal reflection of his life as a poet, a writer, and an author – in which he recites a different poem from every one of his poetry collections. In this episode Mark recites his poem ‘Tales of Wonder Lands’, from his poetry collection The Dreamer and The Dream, and he gives some insight and some context into why he was inspired to write this poem in particular.
My Poem “The Wolf Moon” (2020)
My Poem “The Wolf Moon” which I wrote in 2020 – which was published in my poetry collection ‘The Rambler’, originally published in paperback in 2020 and republished in hardback in 2024.
My Poem “Count to Ten”
I was once a poet of a single poem…
I was once a dreamer of a dream…
I was once a rambler of fields of gold…
I was once a boy who loved, who laughed,
and who saw the world with an eternally optimistic eye…
I was once a believer in everything that I saw,
everything that I heard, and in everyone whom I met;
however, over time, I was struck
by multiple instances of unpredictability
that changed the course of my life forever…
I can still remember who I was and where I was
when so many of the things that happened
to me left their mark upon me…
I can can still remember writing that first verse,
that first step, that first gift of adoration and love
which was the spark of inspiration that I needed
to start the fire of creativity within me
that has only grown in size, heat, and ferocity,
as I have allowed myself to evolve as a writer
and as an author into whatever, whomever,
wherever I believe I have always been destined to be…
unlike some, I have never been afraid of words;
in fact, words are powerful and sacred to me
in ways that are sometimes hard to describe -
because words matter to me,
because words energise me,
because words feel so natural to me,
and whenever I write a collection of words,
especially poetry, I feel like I am writing something
that only I could write and something
that I do not require anyone but me to understand…
a sphere, a sound, a multiverse, a path, a story -
throughout each of my eras and experiences
as a poet and a writer, I have witnessed
change happen around me,
as well as change happen within me,
that has sometimes been challenging to face,
to overcome, and to experience;
however, I know that I have no choice
but to continue doing what I know I have to do:
to keep going, to keep dreaming, to keep writing,
to keep being fascinated by things and by people,
to keep my eyes, my ears, and my mind open -
because there are times when everyone
has to admit that things are different
from what and how they expected them to be,
and which is why it is always helpful in certain situations
to take a moment to look, to listen, to consider,
and then count to ten before making a decision
about what to do, where to go,
and about who they want to be
in the next phase of their future.
A Journey Through Poetry #39: Our Song
This episode is a part of Mark’s “A Journey Through Poetry” – a personal reflection of his life as a poet, a writer, and an author – in which he recites a different poem from every one of his poetry collections. In this episode Mark recites his poem ‘Our Song’, from his poetry collection The Eternal Boy, and he gives some insight and some context into why he was inspired to write this poem in particular.
My Poem “Capture This”
So often in my life
I have been somewhere,
with someone, as well as alone,
when I have immediately understood
that I was witnessing something
that to me looked and felt extraordinary
in some way, shape, or form -
however, it was not until I became a poet
that I knew I had the skill set
to be able to put into words
and paint a picture with language
exactly what something in particular,
or someone in particular,
meant to me at a particular moment in time…
as time has gone by, some of the words
that I once used to describe something,
or someone, that seemed instantly amazing to me
have faded from memory -
like a photograph that has been
exposed to sunlight for too long -
and I have had to contend with
the fact that nothing remains
as they used to be forever,
because nature has a way of teaching all of us
that everything and everyone
has a purpose, a meaning,
and a reason for why they should be treated
as if it they are something unrepeatable,
unique, and a treasure like that of a rare find…
my heart has never ceased to want to
allow itself to live and breathe alongside
those of other likeminded souls,
but time and time again
my heart has been broken
and has had to repair itself
because the intentions of others were able
to override my own expectations and instincts
and lead me almost over a cliff…
my gift and my connection
to the universal muse has been able to
give me visions and dreams of places,
and my interpretation of the sound
of the orchestra of the cosmos
has allowed me to understand my place
in the grand scheme of things
when it comes to the reason why I am here -
and I must have had close to a million moments
in my time when I have seen something,
heard something, felt something,
and automatically picked up the means
to be able to carry out my destiny:
my innate ability to be able to
be witness to something and know
immediately in what way
I am going to capture it.
Mark The Poet 