recollections
My Poem “A Matter of Time”
I have always revisted the past... I have always lived in the present... I have always looked forward to the future - and there are times when I experience the past, the present, and the future collide: as if something momentous has happened, something revelatory, something that reminds me, yet again, that life is, essentially, multidimensional verses of poetry, and I get to see and understand things that I could not and would not have been able to at any other time - because I was not ready. I remember so much... moments mean more to me than most... I keep touchstones of experiences that enable me to travel through time that can happen as slow and as subtle as a raindrop falling from above, or as fast and as forceful as a gust... I can still recall how people looked, how places were, what was said, what song was playing on the radio - in some cases more than others, over the timeline of my life - and when some moments, in particular, do resurface and come back into focus, it almost feels as if everything that has happened and will happen is all happening all at once. In some ways, sometimes, we all must change... in some ways, sometimes, we all must break the mould that we have been cast in... in some ways, sometimes, we all must act and not necessarily know what the next steps to take will be... in some ways, sometimes, it is better to not think too much about what has yet to happen - and sometimes it is good to have a goal in front of you to focus on. We are all pilots, as well as passengers, travelling through the vortex of time hoping that one day we will eventually land and find ourselves somewhere that will give us what we have been searching for, without even knowing it... we are all capable of extraordinary things and each of us can do something that uniquely defines us - and yet, one thing that life teaches all of us is that the moment that you think you know it all or have seen it all you will discover that you don't, you haven't, you won't, and you can't; and why? Because sometimes we are not meant to know everything - only what we need to know, but not always what we want to know; because everything is a matter of time.
My Poem “Missing Time”
Since the start of this world-shattering pandemic I know deep in my soul that I have missed the sound of a particular source of music - a soundtrack, a beat, a rhythm of life that can be heard, felt, and seen within your minds eye, whether it be morning, noon, or night: the same pulse of inspiration that first surged within me at the very moment when I knew that I was born to be a poet. What I love about writing and what keeps me coming back to the blank page time and again is the same thing that I miss about sitting in a café surrounded by people, before the days of mandatory masks and before compulsory social distancing. The thrill of the unknown, the magic of the instantaneous, the order and the chaos that to me always made sense and which I could always easily pull into focus: all that being an artist is all about... you can't plan for it, you can only create it when you feel it within you boiling away with such ferocity that you know it is about to explode - which is why artists need to capture what occurs to them before whatever idea forms combusts into dust and becomes as spectral as a ghost. I yearn to go back in time... I wish that I could return to a place at a point in the past where and when I truly believed every moment would always last... I still cannot believe that we are all living in the world that greets my senses and compels my thoughts and my emotions so overwhelmingly... I wish that I could do something, I wish that I could write something, I wish that I could imagine something that might serve to transport everybody away from our current stark reality - perhaps to a moment of peace, joy, and love that the world once enjoyed, or to a time in the future when I know the memory of our current present will not be as potent. I have personal places and I have particular times where and when I return to within my thoughts and within my dreams that mean the world to me that feel so close to me that I could reach out and grasp them: perfect moments the like of which everybody has, which we all would do anything to get back to, which we never stop missing and which are among life's most precious of blessings.
My Poem ‘Those were the days’
The days as a child
that I spent daydreaming;
the days as a child
that I spent simply being;
the days as a child
that I spent reading, creating,
making, watching, listening, and learning,
were the best and the most care-free of my life;
and my memories and recollections
of the days when I was a boy, thinking back,
were truly inspiring, exciting;
and there are times now, as an adult,
when I look around and I think,
and I sometimes wish,
that I were still the boy that I was,
and still dreaming.
I am constantly writing down memories;
I am always drawing maps in my mind
to lead me back to where I have been;
I am continuously saving things;
I am frequently returning
to the places that I had to leave.
Things must change;
sometimes in life
you have to navigate and find your way
through something that feels like a maze;
even though most things that we do in life
happen and never leave any trace,
it is important to remember the important things –
like places and faces –
that make you say out-loud:
‘those were the days’!
Mark The Poet 