poem

My Poem ‘The True Gift’

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

The true gift of Christmas,
the best present you could
ever receive or give;
the truth of the season
you can always trust,
the spirit that you can
walk a thousand miles with;
the touch to heal all scarred hearts,
the light that shines like the North Star;
the beautiful angel who shows you
the true meaning of life
that so many have for years
been in search of;
the true goodwill of somebody
that everybody at one point or another
has been touched by.

Christmas is, and should always be,
a celebration of shared ties
and meaningful connections;
Christmas can only be Christmas
if you give without any expectation
of anything in return;
Christmas is always full of passion,
and if you are fortunate
then whatever thoughts that you think
may return to you in more amazing and wonderful ways
than could ever be mentioned;
to open your heart for another, whenever you can,
is the true message that resonates
every moment of the season.

Christmas trees; shiny ornaments;
one of a kind shared and special moments;
the miracle of rejuvenation and joy
that constantly brings to life
a story that will always exist;
the motto on the family-crest of St. Nicholas;
the true meaning of life
that is more than a myth;
giving, sharing, remembering,
meeting, living and breathing,
every thing about everything
is how you know in more ways than one
the true gift of Christmas.

My-Poem-'The-True-Gift'

My Poem ‘Yesteryear’

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

Sitting in the same spot,
wearing the same shoes,
unlocking a door
usually kept shut,
looking out through a window
and seeing a unchanged view;
remembering the past
without reliving it,
remembering poems that I wrote
right here about a time in the future;
everybody is nostalgic, especially a poet;
the more I see, the more I think,
the more I write, the more I remember,
and the more that the pages of my mind
flick back and forth,
I pick up on things that I left behind
from the last time that I was here.

The past is a story that we all tell ourselves,
and for good reason when we come up upon
moments from our lives we do sometimes find
blank pages full of words written in invisible ink;
the present is like being at a crossroads
of time and possibilities;
the future is sometimes not going to turn out
just how you think;
the Earth keeps turning,
the people keep moving,
the seasons keep changing,
life keeps evolving as it has
and as it will continue to do so
for centuries upon centuries to come.

We sit across from ourselves more than we realize;
we are constantly searching for commonalities;
we all want to see ourselves reflected
in another person’s eyes;
we all imagine different realities;
some things will always change,
some things will always be the same;
some things are other things
just repackaged in a different box
with a different name;
some things come back time and again.

Tears must fall;
forests must grow;
flowers must rise tall;
rivers of all colours must flow;
life can sometimes feel like you are walking
through a hall of mirrors;
we must all learn to capture every miracle
and make it a part of us
before it disappears;
a life of anticipation can feel like
you are constantly waiting
for a parcel to be delivered;
as I get older and as I travel
and I am pulled along by destiny’s slipstream,
I constantly find reasons to say
that I am glad to be here –
and now, as before, I walk forward
while closing again and walking away
from the door of yesteryear.

My Poem ‘The Wolverine’

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

They call me ‘The Wolverine’;
as wild on the inside
as I am on the outside;
I am both the dreamer
and the dream;
as strong in body
as I am in mind,
and just like an animal
who lives by their instincts
I live a life pushed to its limits.

I may heal fast, but I never forget;
I may remember the past,
but I am not bound by it;
the world may get dark,
but I can always see a light;
I may not be like a dog with a bark,
but I do have a bite.

I can be both the leader and the follower;
I can be both alone and in a crowd;
I can be both a wanderer and a watcher;
I can be both at home surrounded by nature,
or in the sky far above the clouds.

All wild things have claws;
all fighters sometimes are called to war;
all survivors sometimes have to dig deep;
all who eventually learn how to swim
sometimes have to sink beneath.

Confidence without arrogance;
wise, but still able to listen;
strength without losing breath;
having vision,
but still able to adapt and act
after being struck by inspiration.

The wild one can also be the quiet one;
the person can sometimes be
more dangerous than the weapon;
the vivid can also be the invisible;
the real can sometimes be the most impossible;
the protected can also be the free;
the most extraordinary can accomplish
all that they can imagine,
and there is no one who will ever stop
being who they were meant to be
more so than The Wolverine.

My Poem ‘Above and Beyond’

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

Some people fly all the time,
while some people have never left the ground;
some people have always dreamed
since they were a child
about leaving Earth
and looking back at our planet’s
divine blue and green light,
while some people have delved deep
into the human soul
and have exposed and made loud
the voice of a heavenly sound;
some people have only had one love
in all their life,
while others have had to search
many countries, many miles,
for many days, over many nights,
to find the one whom for them
was their love at first sight.

Reaching space for an astronaut is not the end,
it is only the beginning…
diving deep for a diver is an adventure
into a beautiful and magical realm
that we as a species will never stop believing
has a captivating call;
conservationists want to preserve our planet
and its many species,
and they understand that for Earth
to continue to be the beautiful jewel that it is
as many of the life that now lives
must continue existing;
writing for a writer is an obsession,
and the perfect decoration
for a writer’s home and sanctuary
would be books on bookcases on every wall.

Our planet would die without our sun;
humanity would no longer be human
without our unbreakable connection
to planet Earth, and our reciprocal duet
of the same song;
every story that we tell each other
is distinctive of who we are
and where we come from;
what we see always has an effect on us
and on our lives –
whether we look far or deep,
below our feet,
or above the clouds
above and beyond.

MarkTheAstronaut

My Poem ‘Words of Destiny’

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

A sword of words,
a motto to be repeated today
and remembered tomorrow,
a race to find a cure,
an illuminated road before you,
a journey into the unknown,
a trek of discovery,
a tale to tell yourself
when you are alone,
one poem of one poet’s poetry,
can be life-changing,
can be scary,
can be life-saving,
and can be all that you have ever wanted –
sometimes the smallest things
can make us the most happy.

Diversity and difference
is what life is built on;
some people can’t help being individualistic,
and some people can’t help being
someone who follows in the same direction of a crowd –
everybody has an inherent nature
that is always turned on,
and everybody knows the power
of both silence and sound.

A whisper can be like a droplet of rain;
a message can be like the downpour of a storm;
an echo can be like a flood of water
that can’t be drained away completely;
an event of epic-proportions
can turn a once dried up river
again into a raging waterfall.

Not everybody listens to a warning
when they first hear it;
the sudden impact of something
can create a crack
that if not filled
will only get worse as time goes on;
it can sometimes be hard
to break a life-time habit;
everyone on Earth shares an irrefutable connection.

Words are an obsession;
music is the language of someone’s heart
made so that all can hear
the dreams and wishes of someone’s soul;
words of every language
can be a source of warmth
on days when the air is cold;
music does not require translation,
because it transcends time and race,
and it will never go out of fashion.

One person’s opinion
can be the deciding factor in something;
one word can mean more than a hundred;
one person can capture your heart forever
when they speak to you,
or when they open their mouth
and their words sing;
one compliment can be to you
the most beautiful poetry;
one war can be won by one knight,
and they can lead and unite an entire army
with one sword;
one seed of an idea
can be but the beginning
of a chain of words
that could grow to become
the most epic of destinies.

My Poem ‘There with you’

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

When I’m talking to you,
and I know that
there is something wrong with you,
I can’t tell you
how that makes me feel –
I just wish that I could kiss you for real
and take away your stress and your pain,
I wish I could go back in time
and step back inside the photo-frame
to when we were together
and happily sitting with each other in the sun;
I wish I could take away the agony
that torments you… with all my love.

Why do the sweetest have to go through so much?
Why must I be so far away now
when you are all that I can think about
and all that I want to touch?
Why must an ocean keep us
on different continents?
Why can’t we just got back to the moments
when we used to sit on the porch?

You need me, and I need you;
you are my everything
and the best thing that has ever happened to me,
and I would give anything right now
and always to forever be with you;
I should be there when you need me the most;
I wish I could package myself to you
as simple as sending a gift to you by post;
I know that I can’t be there now,
but I promise you that I am on my way;
you are my entire life,
and I just wish that there
were more words to say
all that there is to say about you,
my angel of light.

I’m here for you, babe;
I will always be the one
who you can rely on;
if I lived just around the corner
I would be there
by your side right now,
and there would be nothing
that could stand in my way –
because you are my only one.

I wrote this for you;
I want to be with you;
I would do anything
to have my arms wrapped around you;
I will be there with you soon,
and I can’t wait –
because all that I want to do
and the only place where I want to be
is right there with you
for all of eternity.

My Poem ‘The Foreseeable’

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

No matter how much the climate changes…
no matter the year, the decade, or the century…
no matter the faces of the famous
displayed online or printed
on the black and white newspaper pages…
no matter how we interact with one-another –
face to face, or by using the most
up-to-date technology…
some things will never change
and will always stay the same…
no matter what the names are
of the games that people love to play…
days and dates will always continue
to mean something –
especially on those occasions
when people can celebrate
and enjoy light that never stops sparkling.

Many of us are creatures of habit –
I, myself, have walked the same way,
done the same things,
listened to the same music so many times
that people could probably
set their clocks by me –
some may wonder what it is
about my almost daily-routine
that stimulates me and keeps me
from repeating my actions
to the degree that they become boring;
however, all I can say
is that no matter how many times
I go to the same place,
or I do the same thing,
every single day
I see something,
I hear something,
I learn something
that I never knew before –
and, to me, each new day
and every new person that I see
is a mystery to observe and explore.

Routine keeps the world turning;
repeating keeps an engine from stalling;
re-reading keeps a person’s thoughts running;
reevaluating everything you see
keeps the world exciting and inspiring;
reminding yourself of why it is important
to do some things regularly
remedies any and all short-comings
about you or your life
that you feel there may sometimes be.

For the vast-majority of our lives,
most of the things that happen to us
are predictable;
we all can have a so-called “ordinary day”,
during which there will be something
that will happen that will be remarkable;
our life’s cycles are some of the most
special and personal things
that we can always rely on and fall back on,
and they are what make our lives
feel full and wonderful;
the world will consistently remain
changeable, recyclable,
and indomitably-incapable
of not trying to reinvent itself
without breaking its own mould –
and in doing so
everything and everybody
will always have a part of them
that will be both random
and foreseeable.

My Poem ‘One Life Only’

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

The meaning of life
is not to be rich –
the reason you are here
is to find the one
with whom you are meant to be with;
the reason for the waves of the ocean
is the same as the reason
that everybody has emotions;
the reason why we change
when we fall in love
is because we are always reminded
subconsciously of the instant of our birth,
when we opened our eyes and we looked above,
and we came eye-to-eye
with the first face that we saw –
every day of our lives
we want to feel what we felt,
and we want to find the only other person
who could ever compare
to the first love of our lives
that we naturally and instinctively adored.

A little-known thing
that as we get older we all forget…
a seemingly small but significant moment,
like a sunset…
the knowledge that the more that you give
the more that you get…
the thing that will remain
ingrained in your brain
even after your body’s last breath…
the last thought
that will pave the way
to heaven after death…
that which will build
the landscape of the world to come next…

What you do with your life is your choice –
the repercussions of your actions
will be your true voice;
when you are low,
when you reach the wall of “I don’t know”,
when you feel pulled in every direction,
when you want to make what you do for pleasure
and what you do for love
your one and only profession,
when you can live
and be there for someone else,
when it finally dawns on you
that the most important people
in your life are what make up
the true riches of your wealth –
then you will know what you have been missing,
then you will know you have a world of everything,
then the sun will shine even on rainy day,
and then you will live the dream
that will never fade away.

If we could all go back to the beginning,
if we could all go back to the start,
if we could all know the self-titled song
of our lives that we have been singing along to
since day one,
if we could put our present
back inside time’s wrapping,
if we could find earlier
the one with whom we share the same heart,
we might find our life
slowly coming undone –
so, don’t think too much
about the road less traveled,
don’t think about wanting your life
to fly by, or to get older quicker…
take every day slowly;
don’t think, just do;
find the one for you,
even if you have to search the entire world;
let things happen as naturally as possible;
build a home of bricks, not sticks;
don’t worry about the why of things,
just make the most of your
one life only.

My Poem ‘Christmas Time’

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

“So this is Christmas,
and what have you done…”
sang John Lennon on the radio
as I sat with my pen and notebook,
as the sun shone through the windows
and reflected off the chrome panels
of a nearby building;
I was near an open door all the while –
but not for a second did I feel cold;
the Christmas songs kept playing,
the air was cozy,
and everybody around me
was locked in their own world;
the Christmas colours and lights
were bright and bold,
and just as I got to the end
of the first verse of my new poem
a familiar voice sang loud:
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

I sit. I stare. I blink. I smile.
I write. I think about how much
I have in common with the life of a sundial –
because I too would be nothing
without the light of the star from afar
that gives my life meaning
and endows me with all that I need
to be who I am supposed to be.

As Louis Armstrong sings
of the “trees of green”
and the “red roses too”
and the blue skies of our “wonderful world” –
I know, I see, I remember
all that he sang about
and what I too believe makes out planet
standout from any other
in the entire universe;
so often, I become both lost and overflowing
with words to describe
all that I see and all that I feel;
I do not know who I would be
if I could not write the language of my heart
on a page in connected verse of poetry.

“White Christmas” starts to play,
and instantly I am back in time
and I am imagining things that happened
so many years ago –
I remember the snow of my childhood,
I remember the happy times I spent with my family,
I remember imagining that if anybody
were to walk on the surface of the moon again
then of course I would;
I remember seeing true beauty
in fallen snowflakes
and knowing that there was more to me and to life,
and twenty years before I would ever have thought
to write anything that I would now
consider in any way poetic.

One last song plays
before I have to leave the place where I am now;
where I am going next I do not know for sure,
because I do not have a fixed plan –
however, as I think of a title
to sign-off my brand new chain of rhymes,
I decide to use the last words
of the song that I hear…
and as my poem is about the world of today,
about me, and is in itself a snap-shot of life –
this poem is about this moment,
and at this moment it is definitely
Christmas time.

My Poem ‘The Bright Side’

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

There is no such thing
as total-darkness;
there will always be
those who have more
and those who have less;
in a dark-blue sky
there is nothing like
the pure white light
of the moon’s crescent
to fill you with awe
and relieve you of any stress.

When the sun rises after a long night,
when the moon appears like a ghost in the sky,
when dawn calls, when dusk falls,
when ocean-waters become a mirror,
when candle wicks burn
and their flames flicker,
when eyes open, when eyes close,
when the world of the day has awoken,
when the aroma of the air
is as distinctive as the smell
after a thunderstorm
or as unmistakable
as the pungency of burnt-toast.

With the first observance of fire
followed a basic understanding
of the human heart,
and what lies and burns
at the core of every living thing;
when humanity first saw lightning,
it must have automatically
occurred to our ancestors
that it must be the energy
and the work of the gods
who dwelled in the sky above;
when the first language of expressions
and signs was first devised
and replicated over and over again,
it must have been phenomenally exciting;
when the first heart ached for another,
that was when humanity first discovered
one of the greatest forces in the universe –
the power of love.

Most people, and most things,
do not get a choice about how and when
their story will come to an end –
every sunset, every sunrise,
could be someone’s last;
over time truly is how and when
you find out who are your true family and friends –
and every day that comes and goes,
and who it is that you see
when you look around yourself,
is when and how you find out
who is your eternal star and sunshine –
and they who will always be the one
to show you life’s
ever-present bright side.