poem

My Poem “Say No To Dystopia”

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

When I woke up this morning,
in my mind I felt like I had travelled
back in time to the year 1989 –
over thirty years in the past –
to a time in my life
when I began to become absolutely fascinated
by films and TV shows that depicted
what life would look like thirty years,
a hundred years, a thousand years in the future;
and this morning, while watching
a film called ‘Millennium’ –
a movie that centred around
the prospect and the concept
of time travellers travelling
back and forth in time
to save people before they died
and transporting them into the future –
I realized that almost thirty years before,
as a child, I was most likely watching
the same film that I was watching now on DVD
back then on VHS tape,
and while just as completely
enthralled now as I was by
what I saw depicted back then
I realise now that at the time
I did not fully understand what
the film trying to say.

Every film, every TV show, every book
whose story takes place
in a future setting and at a future time
always attempts to predict an accurate
depiction of how the world of tomorrow
will look, sound, feel,
and what the life of our descendants
will be like based upon an extrapolation
of the direction that some things
seem to be logically taking –
such as technology, fashion,
and the way that people treat one another –
and sometimes the world to come
is predicted to be one of hope, optimism,
universal understanding
and peaceful coexistence,
while some cautionary tales
predict that we may all be slowly
but surely spiralling into a world
that can only be described as being
dystopian
in which the children of tomorrow
have to live a hard and painful life
because of the short term actions
and mistakes of our present
which to them would be perceived
as their past.

Science Fiction writers and futurists
have been trying to warn people
what the future might be like,
and what the future world might
look like, if we – humanity –
do not stop and take a good, long,
and deep look at ourselves
while asking ourselves
where we are going wrong
and what we can do to build a better
world to leave for future generations
to be thankful for.

At this moment in time,
it sometimes feels like the world
is teetering on the edge of a precipice
from which there will be no coming back from:
a potential future that has been prophesied about
in science fiction tales for almost
a hundred years –
from H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’
to films like ‘Waterworld’ ‘Mad Max’,
‘The Matrix’, ‘Blade runner’,
and ‘The Terminator’ movies,
which all depict possible versions of our world
and a dark vision of the future
in which Earth’s natural resources
are in short supply or have been completely depleted entirely
and humanity is mostly living a day to day existence of not always knowing
how they are going to survive
and if it is possible for them to leave
a legacy going forwards that generations
to come will be proud of.

Humanity always has a choice
about which direction they want to go
in terms of technological interdependency,
the destruction of the natural world,
and the way they we take
what we have for granted –
and time will definitely tell
whether the predictions of those who either predict a positive version of the future
or those who predict a negative version of the future will ultimately be judged to be right;
however, what is as clear as a crystal ball
is that whatever happens in the future
to humanity and to the world around us,
every one of us are all the architects
of what has yet to come
and by influencing the people
in a position of power now
to want to give the gift of optimism
for the children of the future –
some who might not even be born yet –
we can be a part of making a potential
utopia by promising to keep
the predictions already made
of a potential world-wide armageddon
or an inevitable dystopia
tales of science fiction
that will never become a reality.

My Poem “Maelstrom”

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

Nature is always showing
its utter dominance
and its powerful influence over humanity…
the nature of the world
is constantly acting independent to,
and without any thought of,
how the after effects of its actions
will impact upon all of its inhabitants –
however, some inhabitants of the world
sometimes seemingly act
with just as much disregard
and impunity for how their actions
will ultimately impact upon nature.

When a huge storm rages
there always follows intolerable
damage, destruction, and loss,
and it can sometimes be hard
to pick up the pieces and recover
from what no one and nothing
has any control over –
namely the ever changing weather
and the cocktail of elelments
that all build up to such high levels
of instability and volatility
that they naturally have to create
and generate that which must be
expelled in order to once regain
a sense of order and stability.

Severe storms can literally
change the face of nature –
and so many meteorological phenomenon
have been observed and have
been carried out by nature
since the weather patterns of Earth
began to take shape,
and a long time before humanity
in any form rose to become a vital
and influential voice in the future
of our home planet
and how nature will treat
humanity as a response.

The influence that we have on nature,
the way that nature can influence us,
the equilibrium that we must have with nature
if we are to survive,
is fundamental and it must be recognised
and respected for being what it is:
namely the greatest example
of symbiosis that has ever been observed –
which is why we should all do
everything that we can to think about
why things are the way that they,
how humanity collectively effects
itself and the world that it is
lucky to call home
and all the gifts and the opportunities
that our little blue sphere affords
every form of life on this planet.

We all need to be more concerned
with where we are all going and why
before it is too late
to turn back the clock entirely,
and we must all do our part
to attempt to heal the wounds
that we have scarred nature with
before the high tides of the seas
that have been littered for years
with the fragments of lasting modernity
return to humanity a maelstrom
of their own making.

My Poem “Out of the darkness cometh the light”

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

Out of the darkness cometh the light…
when we move past moments
of pain and despair it is possible to find
exactly who and what we had been hoping
and praying would come into our life…
after we overcome periods of chaos and confusion
we can encounter signs and reasons
to not give up –
and when things can seem too much to handle,
and when you feel like no matter what you do
you can’t do anything right,
there always follows flashes of insight
that show you the way that you need to go
to bring order back to the world
and the torch of illumination
that you need to see
that no matter how black
the clouds that appear to be swirling
above your head might seem
out of the darkness
will one day cometh a light
that will make all that happened to you
feel like it needed to happen
so that you could once again
rest your head at night
and dream dreams of the beautiful,
the hopeful, the best, and the bright.

My Poem “Fountains”

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

We are all fountains of life,
fountains of experience,
foundations of memories,
foundations of knowledge
who each day learn, remember,
and share droplets of who we are,
what we are, where we have been,
what we have done, what makes us happy,
and who we love and adore.

We all generate echoes, distortions,
and invisible fields of gravity,
fields of identity, fields of insight,
and fields of influence around us
that interact with people close by
and people far away –
just like how the light of a sunrise
will naturally inspire someone,
or how the beat of a butterfly’s wings
it is said can effect
which way the weather will take.

We all live walking on the water
of a pool of time that is deeper
than we could ever know,
or ever perceive –
and in my opinion it would be a crime
to waste the moments
that we are gifted with from time to time
to enjoy all the things that life
blesses us with that most people
might take for granted:
a sunny day, a moonlit night,
a penny waiting to picked up
off the ground,
a smile, a breathtaking view,
a walk in the park,
or perhaps the dancing jets
and rippling waves of a serene,
hypnotising and incredibly
entrancing fountain that takes you
back to your youth.

My Poem “Skyline”

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

Every city is constantly
remaking itself and is a mixture
of the old and the new,
and Birmingham is no different.
There is always so much to see
and so much to experience,
and no matter what day of the week it is
I always look upon its many different
buildings and its diverse population
and I think positively
and optimistically about
what it has always been, what it is,
what it will one day be,
and how it and the people
who make it what it is
will be seen when looked upon
from the ground or from high above
and among the many buildings
that make up is iconic skyline.

My Poem “Locutus”

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

Every collective and assembly
of individuals who seek to speak
with one voice when dealing with others
often elects one member of their society
to be the spokesperson for them
in matters of peace, diplomacy,
and the continued prosperity
of their shared consciousness,
while at the same time attempting
to announce, to advertise,
and to further their own interests
and to bolster the idea of the betterment
of those who are connected and interlinked
with every other person who makes up
the hive of knowledge, energy,
and the gift of adaptability
that their culture is built upon.

Figureheads, presidents, prime ministers,
kings, queens, ambassadors have been
sent on missions of state for centuries
in order to explore the prospect
and the possibility of assimilating
a new investment of riches in the form of
people, experience, and examples
of distinctive innovations
that surpass that which is already known,
and it is the act of seeking out
and trying to understand
what is presently a mystery
that has driven the course of the history
of all the empires and also the democracies
that have risen, those that have flourished,
and those that have survived
where others have fallen
because the victorious
chose to change some things
while continuing to stay true to their
underlying pursuit of a vision
and of a state of perfection for their nation.

Sometimes an individual’s voice
and their face can get lost in a crowd
of people who all have their own
personal perspective on what
the reason is for why things
should be the way that they are –
and when that happens
some people naturally seek out
a representative
to speak on their behalf,
and just as long as the person
who is naturally chosen
because they somehow embody
what needs to be conveyed
stays true to the message
and the ethics of who they are
supposed to be representing,
then unless their advancements
lead to conflict there should be no reason
why no one who is anyone
would not listen to a “Locutus” –
in other words, someone who is literally:
“the one who speaks”.

Resistance is not futile

My Poem “02022020”

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

Today is the second of February, 2020 –
meaning that if you were to write it down
then today’s date would be read as “02022020”,
which of course is a palidrome:
meaning that no matter in which order
that you read it it can be read in exactly the same way,
forwards or backwards,
which I consider as being symbolic
of the beautiful symmetry of life, of people,
of the universe that everybody finds themselves
a vital member of when they look up,
when they look down,
when they look in every direction possible,
in order to find their place in this
amazing hive of activity that is constantly
creating new gifts of love, energy, and inspiration
that we can only hope will fuel
that which is responsible for helping
each and everyone of us –
especially those of us here on Earth –
find our way and our purpose in life.

In Punxsutawney, PA, this morning
the Groundhog spoke
and Punxsutawney Phil himself
informed all in attendance that
he did not see his shadow –
which of course means that
there will be an early Spring,
which means that everything
and everyone can look forward
to the early start of a brand new season
of light and beauty
and all the blessings
that it will bring.


Happy Groundhog Day! 😊