poem

My Poem ‘Fallen Friend’

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

A fallen friend, a fallen star,
a friendship that will never end,
a familiar face to be remembered
always as if they were still by your side
as well as always in your heart.

We meet so many people in our lives,
but the special ones we remember forever;
we make so many friends,
but there are only a small group
to whom our fate and their fate
will always be tied together.

It’s hard to say goodbye to a friend –
especially when their spirit
can still be felt, heard,
and seen where we always remember them being;
it means everything to never forget someone,
and it is comforting to always believe
that one day you will see them again;
it’s hard to put into words
what someone truly means to us
and what about them we always found amazing;
it always hurts to think that a friend of yours
had to endure a time in their life
that caused them such pain.

To recall a shared memory,
to say a silent prayer,
to light a candle,
to say goodbye,
to never forget,
to believe that they who we have lost
we be looking over us
as long we continue to remember them.
Earth angels and heroes never die,
nor do great fighters who keep fighting
until the bitter end…
so, to all the dearly departed,
this poem is for you,
this poem is for all of our
indomitable and special
never to be forgotten
fallen friends.

My Poem ‘A Study in Starlight’

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

Everybody knows what it is like
to stay up all night;
everybody knows that experience
of looking out of the window
and watching the stars in the sky
arch through the dark
and mesmerize with their light;
everybody knows what it is like
to stay wide awake
with something, or perhaps someone,
on their mind;
everybody knows that you cannot tell
what will come from what you see around you
and from what you may find inside you
when it is just you
and your future in front of you,
and when what you choose to do next
may be the most defining moment
of your entire life.

Countless writers, artists,
deep-thinkers, and students
who every day attend the university of life,
and its many campuses,
have been driven by the need
to stay in the groove that they feel comfortable in
and create and generate a work by their own hand;
a lorry driver knows what it is like
to drive all through the night
getting to where they need to get to;
a true detective knows what it is like
to have a tantalizing mystery
and a question in front of them
that they believe if anyone can solve it they can;
everyone alive who has ever been told “no”
knows that the harder you work at something,
and the more you believe in yourself,
you can inspire all kinds of energy
and strength to rise from out of the blue.

There is an infinite story being written
in the sky above and all throughout life;
there are infinite characters
with a distinctive voice
making themselves be heard –
even those who communicate with the language of silence;
even someone who is skeptical of the supernatural
knows that there are many forms of astonishing miracles
that some people witness every day
that in themselves are “magic”;
there is no greater push to do something,
or think in a certain way,
than the motivation of fright;
everyone has, at some point in their life,
had an instinct of a not-so-secret sixth sense;
when something looks, reads, or sounds
like it is missing that indefinable “something” –
that is because sometimes some things
need a fresh breath, shot, and spark,
to be infused into them before they are done,
to make something that is great truly epic.

Life is a constant study of seeing,
learning, and understanding,
that doesn’t end until it ends;
in my own personal philosophy,
if you feel like there is more to see or more to do
you are always correct and absolutely right;
if you have the choice to be yourself,
why for a second would you choose to pretend;
the clues and the curiosities
that many people find as they live their lives,
to those of us who embrace a question
as if it were a bona fide religion,
are what keep us up all night
looking through a window
studying the starlight.

My Poem ‘Neo’

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

A new day;
a bright blue new sky;
a new breath of fresh air;
a new moment to take in
the exquisiteness of a familiar place;
a bright light;
a time to let the world slow down,
as if you don’t have a care,
and be re-energized
and feel phenomenal
at all the emotions that you go through
when you feel a gust of wind
blow through your hair.

Life is constantly rejuvenating itself;
people are always looking to better themselves;
life is growing; people are becoming;
life is mystifying; people are fascinating.

New music, new art,
new motivations, new starts,
new meals, new deals,
new mirrors, new reflections;
new journeys, new travels,
new energy, new directions;
new expectations, new idols,
new ideas, new styles,
new happy tears.

New life is abundant on Earth every minute,
just as it is every second in the big wide universe;
there is more happening,
and more parts moving into place,
than anyone could ever comprehend;
the unspoken truth is that
for all the grains of sand on a beach,
and all the stars of the night sky,
we know nothing about how everything truly works –
even a theory that could combine
biology, physics, chemistry, and spirituality
could only ever scratch the surface
of the great meaning of the life, the death,
and the rebirth that is happening:
stars and life are being born,
dying, and coming back to life
in new, wonderful and spectacular forms –
some of which are beyond imagining.

New inspiration, new enthusiasm,
new sights, new vision;
the world made anew because of you,
because of life’s constant state
of reconfiguration, disposition,
and re-fusion.
Somethings will new change,
and some things always do;
some people age before their time,
and some people cannot believe
how fast the days and the years
of their life have flew.

Every new day is a new page;
as the world turns,
life and people from any point of view
can see and be given insights of the universe
that will never be old –
because the universe is constantly
remaking itself every second…
just like new.

My Poem ‘Countryside’

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

As I dream about a city across the sea,
there is someone over the ocean
wishing that they were walking
the fields of the English countryside;
as I sit and hear the sounds
and the accents that I remember so well,
there is someone in the very country
where I wish I was now
thinking about what it would be like
to be where I am, doing what I am doing,
completely untroubled and free.

As I write I think about that friend of mine
telling me about their wish,
and I wish that they and I could trade places,
even if it were only for a few minutes,
and even if it was only a momentary
swapping of minds and lives,
so that we two could for moments
walk in each others shoes
and know the taste and the smell of each others air…
if they were here and if I were there.

If my friend were here at this moment
they would cry at the beauty of the sight of my home;
if my friend could see with my eyes,
their entire vision would be met by
all the colours of the rainbow
represented by the colours of the surrounding
and blooming flowers;
if my friend were able to take in the perfection
that I have known my entire life
which never gets old,
they would never be able to describe verbally
what their eyes cannot look away from –
even if they were describing the landscape
to someone on the phone;
if my friend could follow in my footsteps,
they could and they would never stop exploring
and seeing something new and beautiful
everywhere they looked,
even if they kept walking for 24-hours.

Even when it rains,
and the leaves of the trees are speckled
with droplets of cleansing water from above,
the green that is England through and through
only becomes even more striking,
and when the clouds part
and the sunlight comes blazing through
there is no view anywhere
that is more amazing, nor breathtaking,
than the sudden explosion of colour
that is nature accentuated by the golden rays
of the most important star in the sky
that always makes my home
look like a real life landscape of art
that could never be fully explained,
because it is what it is:
a true, heart-breaking, paradise,
that is so beautiful
it will never stop bringing tears to my eyes.

There are people who I have not yet met face to face,
but who I want to meet;
there are places where I have been
that I want to return to some day,
where when I left them I cried;
there are friends of mine in other countries
who I can’t wait to fully introduce myself to
in the flesh when we first meet and greet;
there are places that I see every day
that the sight of makes me smile,
that if I could I would share with the entire world –
where I have done my fair share of walking,
thinking, contemplating and imagining,
in the most heavenly place on Earth
that is the great, glorious, gorgeous
and beautiful English countryside.

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My Poem ‘Daredevil’

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

Every child is born
just as their parents were;
even as you grow and you learn
you still cannot see your own
personal future;
everyone experiences things
in their lives that are a test,
in one way or another;
some things that happen
are out of our hands
and they are things
that are beyond our control,
but it is how we respond to things
and the way in which we react
that is a test of character beyond compare.

Accidents happen; people get hurt;
things don’t always work with precision;
one minute you can find yourself
standing tall and strong,
and the next you can be lying
face-first in the dirt;
terrible life-changing events
can sweep you up in them
that can affect you for the rest of your life:
one second you can be walking across a busy road,
and the next you might find yourself
in a corridor walking towards a bright light;
you can be bitten by a random insect,
you can be sitting and suddenly feel
a sharp pain in your arm;
you can wake up one morning and feel depressed;
you can unknowingly be causing yourself
and someone else harm or distress;
you could catch a disease
that is so destructive and corrosive
the cure to survive it may be to lose a limb,
and when you do come up against something
and you have to make a choice
to go with the flow,
to fight for your own identity
is the only way for you to win.

Life is hardly ever plain-sailing;
we all sometimes have to make a course-correction,
now and again;
sometimes we all have to suffer through pain
to feel something amazing.
We are all human; we are all biologically similar –
but no two peoples’ lives are one and the same.

I admire a soldier;
I know why it is important
to have the heart of a fighter;
I know what it is like to lose something important
and see it wither away, as if it were
being burned to ashes by a fire;
the people that fill my heart with optimism,
who overcome their often troubled lives,
are the people to me who always inspire.

To face every day with the same enthusiasm
as a child is glorious;
to never shy away from what you have to do
is truly audacious;
to explore and embrace a brand new frontier
is what it means to be a daredevil and adventurous;
to never shrink and to never turn away
from a worthy fight is the best way of showing
the true indomitable nature of the human soul;
and just how much,
no matter what you are going through,
you can be fearless and phenomenally courageous.

My Poem ‘Civus mondus’

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

Every country,
every city, every town,
everywhere where people look,
see, listen, hear, sit, stand,
and walk around,
every member of every society
is a part of the whole
as well as an individual;
no matter where on Earth a place is,
it is the people who populate it
and who make somewhere
the place it is known for –
and with those people
there are rituals and archetypes of behavior
that distinguish someone
as a piece of a mosaic of a regional picture.

The place someone chooses to live
is telling of who they are;
the speed at which time and life goes by
is different all over the world;
there is always someone
who stands out from the crowd
of a connected group of people
for a reason, because in some way
they shine like a star;
there is always someone
who at alternating times of the day
leaves you both vocal and lost for words.

Order always rises from chaos;
differences of opinion
always generate a wave of change;
language, fashion, normality,
evolves and shifts and can cause
ground-shaking disturbances
like the Earths moving
and colliding tectonic plates;
peace can follow a prolonged period of rage;
sometimes modern life can feel like a race.

Just as you can’t stop a flood completely,
you cannot ever stop the world from spinning;
just as you can’t stop the rain from falling,
you can’t silence a people and species
who were born and are meant
to use their gifted, miraculous talent
to never stop talking and communicating;
just as long as the sun continues to shine
there will always be blue skies,
the world will never be truly predictable
or ever boring – because
as long as there is a world, a galaxy,
a universe, there will always be for everyone
the gift of something.

Choice is both the problem
and the solution to everything,
as the world continues its conversation
and delegation with itself
to find a mutual and universal understanding;
there will always be cycles of parallels
and juxtapositions;
as long as each and every one of us has a voice
and that voice can have an and every accent,
and can be expressed in any way,
we will all always be worldly
and universal citizen.

My Poem ‘The Night Club’

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

It always been amazing to me
how a song or a piece of music
can make you and can teach you
how to move to it
within seconds of first hearing it;
it has always been inspiring to me
how a memorable character in a story
can have the unknown power
to come into the physical world
and walk around in it;
it has always been fascinating to me
why some people, no matter how soundly
they may be sleeping
wake up early in the morning,
and, just like me, begin creating;
it has always been gratifying to me
to see people sharing what they can
and keeping alive the memory
of a phenomenal feeling.

I have always been a quick study;
I have always been fast on my feet,
as well as fast in thought
and luminous and strong in spirit;
I have always known that
there are multiple levels to a story;
I have always felt just as comfortable,
alive, and sensitive to what surrounds me
in the beautiful light of a sunny day,
as I do walking in the dark
in the moonlight of night.

Everyone is a catalyst;
every day is a new day
that has echoes of the days before
as well as foreshadowing of the days that will follow;
every time you do anything
you are taking a risk;
every eventuality can evolve
from fantasy to reality at any moment
anywhere you go.

When you unexpectedly wake up,
you are being awoken for a reason;
when you randomly find something
that has been left by somebody,
that thing was left purposefully
so that you could find it
and so that it could influence
your life in some way;
when you see something, feel something,
and something within you is changed;
when you know that you are forever in love;
when you know your place,
when you know your time,
when you find yourself awake
and energized like never before –
reading, writing, watching, walking,
listening, loving every moment,
even if that place and time
is midday in the afternoon
or 1 o’clock in the morning –
and you discover that you are a member
and a reveler like so many other people
who are in their element being a star
in the constellation of a night club.

My Poem ‘The Force’

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

The galaxy has no boundary,
the stars of our galactic family
are bound to each other by gravity –
but the real magic energy,
that makes everything what it is, we can’t see,
because the energy field that surrounds us all
and links every atom in our body
with those of the worlds trees
is the same that can be found
within the heart of every star
ever born that has ever shined,
which is a force that makes life,
the universe, everything possible,
which we can all feel everywhere every second
that stretches in every direction infinitely.

I have believed since I was a kid
that you should always trust your feelings,
and you should always reach
as far and as high as you can,
and never give up on being
who and what you want to be –
because anyone can do so much
and can have what they need
to bring them happiness,
if for all the days of their life
they never once stop believing.

The universe, like people, has a memory
that is the best there will ever be,
and it also thinks, plans, and experiments
from time to time, and ultimately
it wants everything and everyone to live in harmony,
in serenity, and to be free to be happy,
and understand that moments of contentment
and love are precious, and every moment
will never happen the same way again –
so you must embrace the world
and its gifts of wonderful
and phenomenal improbability.

Some of the best things
that have ever happened in your life,
perhaps even your birth,
were not planned –
but their effect will be long-remembered,
as long as the Earth is a beautiful blue light
in the dark for outer-space observers
and a paradise for those of us
who are blessed to walk its lands
and sail and swim its waters.
Nature is all about maintaining a vital balance
between the light and the dark,
between choice and fate,
between the river and the source,
and every time I feel something
that I know is special and powerful
I throw everything of myself around it
and I make it a part of me
and I feel like a sword of light
perfectly in balance with understanding
and with intense feeling
of the great and eternal
not to be underestimated
power of the force of life.

My Poem ‘Thirteen o’clock’

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

The clock has struck one too many times,
it is now thirteen o’clock,
there is a splinter in my mind,
time itself has stopped,
the past is a fantasy,
the future is an open and wide new country,
reality is broken,
the mirror of reflection has shattered,
I feel like I have awoken
and I am having to call into question
what truly matters.

There is an old riddle
about what you should do
if a clock strikes thirteen,
and the answer to that riddle
is to “get a new clock”;
there are many times in a person’s life
when they have to stand and stop,
look back, look forward,
not knowing where to go and where to turn,
as if in a state of shock;
revelations of ourselves
that occur to us should not be feared,
but they must be questioned;
mistakes are not always a bad thing –
sometimes they can be vital lessons.

There is a legend that says
that if a man hears a clock strike
thirteen times he can save his own life
or someone else’s;
I believe that the thirteenth strike
is when the true picture
of how the world truly is can be seen
by an instant amalgamation
of the fragmented pieces.

Today, right now, for me,
it is thirteen o’clock;
as I remember the road that I have walked and my path,
a shadow shrouds the events of my past as I look back;
it occurs to me that I have been here before,
and that perhaps the thirteenth strike
is the life I have been living within
every second for years;
time and life are like a time-piece,
and they can only function correctly
when going in the right direction –
and for every ‘tick’ there must follow a ‘tock’;
the spin and the orbit of the Earth around the sun
is constant, and I realize that I too
must keep my momentum going and I must
never contently stop.
There is only one way
to know true happiness:
to break free, however you can,
from the everlasting time
of thirteen o’clock.

My Poem ‘The Beach’

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

It has been a beautiful day;
it has been a day to remember
in so many ways;
the sparkling and the warm sand
beneath my feet that I am sitting on
feels amazing;
the glistening golden sea
that looks as if it could be
the surface of the sun –
because it looks in every way
like an ocean of pure energy –
is breathtaking;
as I look out and I see
the most beautiful and unbroken blue sky,
my heart skips a beat;
as I close my eyes,
I am transported in my mind
to a deserted island,
surrounded by palm trees –
in my imagination, I am a castaway
living a life free to be
whomever I want to be –
I have no worries,
I have no distractions,
I am self-sustaining
and I live off and alongside nature
and every day I walk my island paradise
and I swim in the beautiful blue sea;
I read the books that I brought with me,
and I daily write down what I see –
what I think about and what I feel
about life in my journal and diary;
I listen to the sound of the waves
and each one is like the voice of an old friend
stopping by to say ‘hello’;
I hear the music of my youth
playing from out of nowhere;
and when I think about the outside world,
and about my friends and family living their lives
far away, their faces appear
as if sculpted by the billion of grains
of sand that I see below me.

My hair is long;
my beard is substantial;
my skin is brown;
my home is a hand-built house
of cut down trees that has a roof of green
and hard-wearing leaves;
from my favourite spot,
looking out at my favourite view,
I have seen unimaginable sights:
dolphins, turtles, whales;
just off the coast, below the waves,
there is the most stunning
and beautiful coral reef.

To me, this place is heaven;
to me, this life could not be anymore perfect;
to me there is nowhere else in the entire world
where you could see the sun rise and the sun set,
and lay down on your back and see
a 360-degree view of the Milky-way galaxy’s
infinite and magnificent stars
shining their incredible and magical light,
in a place that is in every way
the definition of idyllic.

In my daydream, I look to the oncoming waves
and I see something bobbing up and down
before being washed up on the beach in front of me
and within touching distance of the toes of my feet;
I am not phased by the sight of the plastic bottle
and the evident message on a piece of paper
that is contained within –
however, when I reach down for the bottle
and I unscrew the lid and I reach in
and pull out the piece of paper,
it takes me awhile to realize
the messages’ meaning
because of how profound
the four-words of it are,
it takes a while to sink in.

I am brought back to reality in a flash!
As I look at the world, and to the sea,
everything looks even more stunning
and beautiful than it had appeared before.
Still with the message from my daydream
echoing in my mind like a bell,
I decide to write the same message
in pen on a torn-out page
from my nearby journal…
I write the same message
in the same way as it had appeared to me
only seconds before in my imagination,
and then I put the message
in an empty bottle of water
that I had brought with me earlier,
I stand up,
I run towards the ocean
and I throw my message in a bottle out
as far as I can
for someone to find in the future,
for someone to discover and read;
and then I sit back down
and I watch the sea again,
and I am again taken away
to a far-away place –
all the while, I am sitting in the sun
on the sand of this gorgeous beach.