poem

My Poem ‘Be Poetic’

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

Write what you see…
write what you feel…
write what you believe…
write about your dreams…
write about what is real…
wake up early,
walk towards the eastern horizon
and watch the sun rising every morning…
stay up late at night
until the hours of twilight
and watch the stars shine brightly
and feel their light get inside you…
and what you see… and what you feel…
and what you believe, and what you dream
will fill your mind with wonder
and spark your imagination
when you put pen to paper, or finger to key,
and will become a part of your art
and your writing, and it will change you
and bring into your heart a muse of inspiration
that is amazing and beautiful.

Poetry is not just words…
poetry is not just something that can be written…
if you really want to write or make anything poetic
then all you have to do is open your eyes,
open your heart, look around yourself,
look within yourself, and draw on everything
that your instincts and your senses cannot deny,
and then pick up whatever you use to express yourself
and share what it is that you feel and care about.

Write about anything –
no matter if it’s light, or dark, funny, or sad,
whether it makes you cry, or if it makes you laugh…
write today… write right now…
look around you… look inside you…
think… feel… don’t be afraid… don’t hesitate…
close your eyes… breath in, breath out…
open your eyes, and write like there is no tomorrow…
because today is the day for all poets
to show what they are made of…
be poetic, because today is World Poetry Day!

Happy World Poetry Day! 🙂

My Poem ‘Good morning, sunshine’

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I’m not a song-writer,
I’m a story-teller…
I’m a believer,
but I’m not a fortune-teller…
I have been doing what I do
for longer than I can remember,
doing what I do is both a curse
and a life-saver…
if I could talk to God
I would ask him a favour:
help me, help you,
inspire the world
and give hope to the sick,
the needy, and the poor –
because that is what I want to do
and that is who I want to be…
I want to have the words within me
to change the world
and make everybody understand
that every day is like a new song
that has never been played or heard before,
and every conversation in every language
that is spoken is pure unfiltered poetry.

We all have an oasis in this world…
we all have a place on this Earth
that for us has this lure…
we all have reasons for doing
what we do between sunrise and sunset…
we all have reasons for feeling
happiness and for getting upset –
we are all thinking and feeling human-beings,
we are not unfeeling machines…
we care and we worry about personal things…
we all know what is in our heart
and we all think about “what could have been”.

We don’t have long to figure out
what we are meant to do…
growing up, sometimes we all have to go
with the flow of a tune that we don’t really know…
most of the time, if you don’t have someone else
holding you up and pushing you forward
then you can feel like you are walking
and wavering on a tight-rope
between two tent-poles.

I have been around the world…
I have met people both evil and kind…
I have been on occasion lost for words –
but since the day I met the angel,
my angel, Melissa, all I see
is true heavenly-beauty
every time I look at her face
and she says to me:
“good morning, sunshine”.

My Poem ‘Waiting…’

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Waiting… waiting…
I’m waiting for something…
I’m waiting for something,
and for this thing
I have been waiting all morning…
I used to think that I was good at waiting –
for my birthday, for Christmas, for the weekend…
when I was a kid I knew that within no time at all
my favourite days of the week and the year
would come around again
and within the blink of an eye
they always did…
but, I am all grown up now –
and as I wait now
for what I am waiting for to arrive and be delivered,
I now know the true meaning of the song lyric:
“the waiting is the hardest part”…
did I mention that I am waiting for something?

I have been keeping myself and my attention occupied
while I wait, I have been doing things
that I have not done for years –
but since I cannot leave the house,
and there is no one else
who can sign for my delivery for me,
I knew that I would have to keep
my eyes from constantly
looking at the time while I am waiting…
so I cleaned – I cleaned my bedroom window,
I cleaned the dirty-dishes from the night before –
I listened to music, I sat looking out the window…
thinking… wondering… waiting…
and now here I am, writing, still waiting,
and anticipating…
my morning and my day started early,
as it always does –
but now it is 2 o’clock in the afternoon,
and I am still waiting.

Waiting for what?
What is this something that is so special
that I would stay at home all day and wait for it?
Well, it is something special indeed that is coming –
something that you could say I am connected to,
and the reason that this something even exists…
what I am waiting for is something
that I have spent a long time invested in,
and as I wait for what I hope will soon arrive
I am even starting to have flash-backs
to my first encounter with the idea
of what is beimg delivered,
and I think about the journey that I and it
have already taken with each-other –
all those mornings… all those nights…
all those words… all those internal fights.

When you are doing things,
time literally flies away from you…
when you are watching something,
talking about something,
and when you take your mind off of something,
then the waiting for something
can be a little more bearable,
and less mind-numbing –
but waiting can sometimes be a good thing…
waiting can be exciting…
waiting can also be boring,
especially if you have been
counting how much time
you have actually been waiting…
time is a wasting –
but maybe it’s not?
At least I got to do something
to fill my time while I was waiting:
I wrote this poem that you are now reading –
so at least something worthwhile
came about and was born out of
all the time that I have been waiting…

My Poem ‘The Fighter’

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It’s important to fight…
it’s important to never give up…
it’s important to open your eyes
and look towards the light…
it’s important to never forget
who and what has made you…
and, above all-else,
it is important to always have
something and someone within your mind
and in your heart that you love.

You may feel like you have reached
the end of the road…
you may feel like you have arrived
at the end of the world…
you may believe that there is
no longer anything more to be said or wrote –
and then a new day will begin,
the sun rises again,
and you can go from being lost for words
to overflowing with emotion…
and over time the hurt that you feel
from a painful experience that you have been through
you can learn to use as a form of protection
and defense… like a sword.

To surrender, to submit, to sit down motionless
and quiet can seem like the easiest thing to do…
to not make a fuss, to not fight back,
to not stand up from what you believe in,
because you know that your opinion
might be in the minority
can sometimes seem like the best way
most of the time to keep the peace –
however if everybody did that,
if everybody just took everything for granted
and they did not open their eyes fully
and truly saw all the people
and everything that is necessary
and important to know about our planet,
then none of us would ever truly
know ourselves… and we would give up
before we discover why we are all here on Earth,
and where we are supposed to be,
and what we are supposed to do.

In the wild… in the world of the wolverines,
the wolf, the natural predators of the animal-kingdom
of planet Earth that live in the woods,
in the forests, in the air, in the oceans,
in the deserts, in the places where
only the strongest is made, meant, able,
and accustomed to live and survive –
that is where the fittest, the biggest, the toughest,
walk, run, swim, feed, kill or be killed,
and who as a species have learned
over countless generations
that to be a true survivor
in this sometimes wild world
you have to be a fighter.

My Poem ‘One Giant Leap’

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Small steps… few words…
giant leaps… new worlds…
sometimes to do the extraordinary
we have to go to places
we have never been…
sometimes to see things
we have never seen
we have to rocket away
from what we know
until we feel the pull
of a new source of gravity…
writing and telling stories
is a gift that has always been me…
writing a poem is like expressing a daydream,
writing a story and inventing a brand new world
of unique characters and situations
is like nothing else:
to me it is like letting the inspiration wolf
inside me out so that it can howl loud and run free.

Things grow… things begin as one thing,
and when they are fully-formed
they are something else…
at first, when something or someone
is first learning to find their feet
and walk tall most of the time
they take things slow…
when something or someone looks
at their own reflection
and they recognize themselves for the first time
for what they are that is when
they know what they must do,
and they begin to feel things
that they have never felt about themselves.

An idea can start as a single sentence,
and then that sentence can grow into a poem,
and then that poem can grow
into being a short-story, a novella…
and then, before you know it,
that same single idea has become
a fully-fledged story of its own
of people, places, and experiences,
that are so potent and are so powerful
that they can fill an entire book…
it cannot be quantified,
there is no equation that you can follow…
a poem, a story, an idea can grow steadily
over time into being
a force of nature in and of itself
with its own ideas and voice
about where it should go…
when writing any kind of story
you need to allow whomever your story is about
to find their own heart, their own soul,
their own spirit…
every story has a beginning, and an end –
but, sometimes, there is no way of knowing
how, when, and where, until you take
a step back from it and you allow it
to talk to you from far away
as well as up-close and personal.

I have written a story…
I have written a book…
I have spent hours, days, months,
writing, reading, editing, understanding,
and learning about what who my characters are
and going on a journey of discovery and identity
exploring a different, but familiar, world –
and, most importantly, I have not been afraid
to take risks into a sometimes dark
ocean of imagination and wading deep…
some times you have to learn to not think
too much about what you don’t know
and stop worrying about what you might find
when the time comes for you
to let your mind, your pen, your fingers,
and your words do the talking
when you decide to take your life’s small steps
and turn them into one giant leap.

My Poem ‘Where did you come from? I wasn’t expecting you?’

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Within the blink of an eye,
within the flash of a burst of sunlight,
within an instant of time,
within a single simple impression
that touches you
when you see something
or someone at first-sight…
have you ever considered
what that moment is made up of
and where it comes from?
Have you ever thought about
what all the world
and all life is built upon?

There is always a before,
and there is always an after…
there is always energy,
and there is always matter…
there are always things
that you can’t understand
until you go through them…
there are always realities
that you can’t imagine
until you see them…
the most undeniable thing about life
is that you can never know everything
about it, about everyone who makes it,
about the depths and the secrets
of the universe beyond the sky
and our galaxy’s periphery outer-limit –
because every sphere has its own world…
every place has its own laws of nature…
every planet, every region of space,
has its own history, creation, story,
leaps in evolution, and future.

There is a reason for everything…
there is a reason we are all here…
there is a reason why nothing
can suddenly turn into something…
there is a reason for hope…
there is a reason for fear…
there is a reason for why
there are things that we need to know,
and there is a reason and a meaning
behind what makes us smile
and what brings us to tears.

Some things in life we hope for,
we plan for, we expect,
and we need to happen
to give our life the drive
and the spark to fill the world
with all that we were born to give…
sometimes when you are not expecting
to find paradise or perfection
you can stumble upon an oasis
or someone who to you is the most beautiful…
some things are so precious and meaningful,
and in every way they must be held
close to your heart as a gift…
sometimes life can become so simple,
especially when you look up
and you see something new
and you say to yourself loud and clear:
where did you come from?
I wasn’t expecting you?

My Poem ‘Say My Name’

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Say my name and never stop saying it,
let your voice be heard
and open the heart of the poet…
say I’m yours and I’ll be happy forever,
say I’m brilliant and I’ll feel clever…
when you say my name,
and when I say yours too,
three words always follow: I love you –
and that is when my heart explodes,
the volcano erupts and the lava flows,
and I look at your face
and I read your eyes,
you read mine too and we become one-mind
and that is when I know that
we are one of a kind.

I love you so much,
more than you know…
I want you always
and I want to go wherever you go…
I need your love, I need your heart…
forever is not enough time
to hear your laugh…
you know my past, but you love me still…
you know I’m scarred,
but you know I love you and I always will.

I write from my heart, I write for you…
I write when the sky above
is dark and full of stars,
and when there are white clouds
above my head against a sky of blue…
I write my hopes, I write my dreams,
I write to show what I feel
for who and what I see –
because I need you to know,
what I can’t always explain,
that I love you more than you will ever know,
and I love every moment
that you look into my eyes
and you say my name.

My Poem ‘The Good Reader’

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From acorn to tree…
to paper… to writer…
from life to inspiration…
from the pen of a poet…
to the eyes
and the imagination of a reader…
from out of a cloud of chaos…
something new… something personal…
something that like the person
writing it down and the place
from where the paper
it is being written on came from…
something incredible made believable…
something two-dimensional brought to life
so that it may walk the walk of words
and then take a leap from the page
into the mind of the one
who is reading what is being described…
a world imagined and captured
like a bolt of lightning in a bottle…
something that is a testament
to the power of the human mind…
it is amazing what a writer can do
and what pattern of magical words
they can weave…
it is amazing what a writer
can make a person believe…
epic journey’s have begun
and have been taken
by readers following every word
of every sentence of a writer’s story…
adventures of every height, depth,
and distance have been undertaken
by people who yearn to escape reality
and let their mind and their heart run-free…
over the centuries and after all the tales
that have been told there is still nothing
better to read than a story
that is based on true-events…
even to this day there is no better thing
to experience than to be told a story
and to hear a story while sitting around
a campfire at night with a group of friends…
ghost-stories, recollections,
tales of what, where, when, how, and who with…
some stories sometimes are so amazing
and miraculous that it is hard to know
what is imaginary and what is the real-thing…
a story, like a dream, is a world
that everybody steps into, lives,
and then takes something away from…
a story, a book, a world of characters
and people who we find within a tale
that must be told and read
can teach us something that we never knew
and it can also tell us something
about ourselves…
in countless bookstores, libraries,
on countless displays and book-shelves,
there is untold treasure to be found,
infinite sunsets and sunrises to be seen,
as if staring at the horizon from a pier…
sometimes it is just impossible
to put a book or a story down
once you have begun reading it –
and no matter where a book
or a story takes you
there is only one thing that you can do,
and only one thing that you want to do:
follow the words of a writer
and be a good reader.

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My Poem ‘Cosmos’

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There are some absolutely
breathtaking sights…
the vivid, spectral,
ethereal, green, dancing
magnetic field of our planet
that comes alive and creates
the mesmerizing Aurora
of the Northern Lights
above the sea and the mountains
that touch an arctic sky…
there are some incredible
and stunning places that perfectly
exemplify how truly beautiful
the natural world is…
there are some unbelievably
heavenly spaces, and some
other-worldly lands
that still have yet to be
trekked upon by the foot of a human being –
places that encapsulate the meaning
of the word “wild”…
there are some amazing landmarks
of every country, continent, and island,
where people are drawn to
and they would sacrifice anything
to breathe in its air
and take in everything that makes
such a place so special and enthralling…
there are some things that need to be seen
to be believed that they actually exist.

There are places that need to be seen
in the right light so as to truly witness
their magic – at night, when the sky is dark
and the stars burn bright from so far away
all that can be seen from here on Earth
is a shimmering white…
there are songs sung and music to be heard
when we look up and a celestial voice
speaks to us and unlocks
the doors of our imagination…
there are other worlds out there
in the universe teaming with life
of unimaginable forms that dream
dreams of us at night…
there are things that are being born
every second, everywhere,
that are experiencing what it means
to be alive wherever they find themselves,
and they are discovering for the first time
the wonders that flicker in a person’s heart
and eventually become love.

There are moments when knowledge, intellect,
and words just become redundant
when compared to what we see before us…
there are feelings that overwhelm comprehension
and go beyond our instincts that we trust…
there are miracles and wishes
traveling at the speed of thought
to come and answer the calls
of those who feel lost…
there are galactic travelers
voyaging between the stars
that will one day enter our orbit
and who will reveal to us
things that we have never believed possible
but which are ubiquitous
all throughout the cosmos.

My Poem ‘The Meaning’

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As with most things
it all begins in our eyes
and with what and whom
we see with our eyes…
as with most things
we all come to things,
places, people,
from different directions
and at different times…
as with most things
there are always things
that we regret…
as with most things
a part of something
always remains within
the heart and the soul of something
even after the outer-layers
have withered away and died.

Humanity is fragile…
every day of a person’s life
they are in a constant state of change;
humanity by nature is fallible…
every day of their life
a person can do things
that when looked upon in retrospect
they would see them as a collage of mistakes;
everybody is prone to repetition
and we value our routines;
we are all so caught up in our own lives sometimes
that we are mostly oblivious
to the changing of the times
and the rhythms of life.

A life is full of meaning,
even if you can’t see it:
music, children, love, sport, art,
work can give a person’s life what they need…
no two people live the same life in the same way…
no one and nothing ever stops changing…
what matters the most in life
is what you find in the moments of silence
when there is no sound, music, or talking –
there and then is where you find
what lies within your heart
and what you cannot live without
because of the way that it fills
your life with such meaning.