poem
My Poem “The Helix Nebula”
Whenever I look at an image
of the beautiful Helix nebula –
an image captured of an region of space
within the constellation of Aquarius,
almost 695 light years from Earth –
I, like many others, not only see
a beautiful planetary nebula
that looks almost similar in appearance
to both the “Cat’s Eye Nebula” or the “Ring Nebula” –
but I also see what looks like some kind
of celestial eye looking back at me,
because the more that you look
at the Helix nebula the more that
you see an image like that of
the iris of an eye,
and which is most likely why
the Helix nebula’s colourful and vibrant
blue, green, gold, and red appearance
when seen through the filters
of the visual spectrum
is often referred to as the “Eye of God”:
because once you see it you never forget it.
My Poem “Pandora”
Being a poet, being an artist,
being a writer, being an author,
being a creator is like being
the personification of Pandora –
who in Greek mythology was the first woman,
created out of the Earth by order of Zeus,
whose name means “all gifts”,
and who was gifted a container
which she was instructed not to open
but which she one day
did indeed lift the lid of
and in doing so allowed all the “evils”
within to be released and spread across
the Earth, but was able to close the lid
quick enough to contain the blessing of hope.
When an artist creates something
they are bringing to life a gift
that is a mixture of all that they may have
experienced throughout their life,
while still retaining within them
a feeling of hope and optimism that what
they have to say and to express
will one day find the intended target
that their art was meant for.
Everybody on Earth occasionally
has this insatiable instinct to open
a box or a container that has within it
that which they do not understand,
but that which they must see
with their own eyes to satisfy
their need to know all that can be known,
just like the ever curious Pandora.
My Poem “1984/2020”
Forget George Orwell’s “1984”,
because the year 2020 is a story
that we who are alive now
will never forget and hopefully
we will never have to live through
such a year again – because living
in this present time
is like living in a dark reality
the like of which could never
have been accurately predicted
nor imagined before.
Governments right now are
tracking where we are, where we were,
when we were somewhere in particular,
and who we were within
close proximity to at the time
we were where we were
while doing what we were doing –
so forget about “Big Brother”,
because in real life, in real time,
cameras, satellites, our own
personal mobile devices,
search engines, artificial intelligences,
the eyes of authorities are tracking, tracing, monitoring, and analysing
everybody’s every move and everything that we all say, type, read,
watch, and browse while we are
out and about, and even when we are within that privacy of our own house.
Unfortunately for many
this is year will be remembered
for being full of among other things,
including fear, death, panic, and paranoia;
however I believe that 2020
will also be a year that
will be remembered for being
one in which people thought
about one another,
felt grateful for having one another,
stayed in regular contact with one another,
and when people lived
in hope with one another
while some of the greatest artists
and the greatest medical
and scientific minds
all came together for a common goal
that would unite people like never before.
What no one wants is a time,
a reality, a future that may
have some similarities to a famous,
prescient, George Orwell novel –
however, over time, circumstances
will be influential in rewriting
the book of what it means to be human
and every one us will ultimately have
contributed to the tale of humanity
that generations in the future
will come to know well:
a compelling real life story
of worldwide disease, panic,
surveillance, and control
that may one day rival,
and perhaps eclipse, what was
only supposed to be a cautionary tale
of a dystopian world –
the unforgettable story
featured in the novel that is “1984”;
but the story of 2020 is still
being written, so we will have to
wait and see what the future has in store.
Mark Hastings 