reflection
My Poem “Self-reflection”
My life has always been one of constant reinvention... every day the man in the mirror reminds me that you cannot move forwards if you continue to live your life in reflection... my life has always been one of questions, answers, and the pursuit of mystery... every day the voice within me tells me to never give up, to stay true to myself, and no matter what I do continue to be a poet and an author of my own poetry. We can only live our lives by embracing what feels right at the time... we can only see what we capture with our eyes... we can sometimes only be free when we are sleeping and dreaming at night... we can only compare two sides when we are given a deeper insight. Some people will never truly know you, nor ever understand why you do what you do and sometimes that can be frustrating - especially when you want someone to "get you", to like you, and to want to engage with you... some people can be drawn to people, some people can be intimidated by people, some people can be intrigued by people, some people can know people as soon as they meet them, because they see themselves in them as if they were their own reflection.
My Poem “Baba Yaga”
There have been times
in everybody’s life
when they have been wide away
at an hour of twilight –
when the moon was shining
its white halo of reflected light
back at those looking
at it from below –
when people have felt,
even though they were alone,
as if an invisible presence was
sitting next to them, staring at them,
and communicating to them a choice
that they needed to make –
for some this spirit may have been
personified as being an angel,
a ghost, a reflection in the mirror,
a face in the flames of a fire,
a rebel devil, a man in black,
a bright light, a dark shadow,
a messenger of heaven, a hellion of hell,
a pale rider, an emissary of purgatory,
a crossroads guide, a Boogeyman,
or perhaps a scary witch who
goes by the name of “Baba Yaga”,
who tests everybody whom they find
or who finds them, in order
to discover who a person is
deep within their soul.
My Poem “360”
It is only when you step out
of your reality –
even if it is only for a short time –
that you discover what the other
sides of life really look like…
it is only when you step inside
the shoes, inside the world,
and inside the perspective
of somebody living in a place
and in a way that may be
far removed from the one
that you know so well
that you learn just how much
of life is not black and white –
because, in reality, life is
all colours and hues
from every extreme of the spectrum
all emanating and infusing
the universe with all its depth
all at once.
At different times of the day
life can feel like a dance…
sometimes life can feel
being at a rock concert…
sometimes life can be like
being at the theatre or at a cinema
watching a play or a movie…
life can sometimes be like
looking into a mirror…
life can sometimes feel like
you have been in a car-crash…
life can sometimes be like
being a passenger on a rocket-ship
bound for somewhere where
the gravity that you have
been used to all your life
no longer exists and you have
to learn to think, to move,
to propel, to motivate yourself,
to be someone and something else
beyond who and what you have always known.
The world turns fast,
but sometimes changes are slow to occur…
unfortunately far too few things
are meant to last,
but the precious gift of life
is to be able to explore
so many of the wonders of this world
that we call Earth.
Nature is always redefining itself…
nature is constantly being influenced
by humanity at the same time
that humanity is being influenced
and inspired by nature –
and every time someone goes somewhere
that they have never been before,
and they turn around to see
what is all around them in 360-degrees,
everybody has to take a pause
so that they can breathe in and breathe out
the dream come true of being free.
My Poem “The Virtual/Reality”
There used to be a clear
and present distinction
between the world of the real
and the reality of the virtual…
People used to be able to see
the truth of something
through the veil of the illusionary –
however, then illusionists became
better at presenting their craft
and more knowledgeable
about what motivated
the thoughts of a person’s mind
and what increased the beats
of a person’s heart,
and then it began to become
increasingly more harder
to see through the mirror
of reality that surrounds
everybody which constantly
reflects both the good and the bad
that a person observes about themselves
when they look at their own reflection.
The more that technology has advanced
the more elaborate illusions –
in all their many forms –
have become, and with every passing day
reality and fantasy have become
increasingly more indistinguishable
from one another…
in this day and age,
someone can put on a virtual reality headset,
they can open up an internet web browser,
and they can sign up to becoming
a participant and a player in a game –
however, without fully reading
the full extent of the terms
and the conditions by which
they may be bound to.
When a baby is born into this life
they are always unprepared
for what world awaits them…
when every child is growing up
they are always surrounded
by an abundance of messages,
pressures, and beacons of distraction
that are constantly interacting with,
and trying to influence,
their instincts, their choices,
and the actions that they will commit to…
when someone is transitioning
from being a beginner into becoming
a novice who knows the ropes
and all the rules of the world
and the society that they are tethered to
and which need to be adhered to,
while they are trying to figure out
who they want to be and what they want to do,
everybody is pulled in multiple directions,
by multiple people –
and it can take a long time before
someone realizes that the one person
who will feel the aftermath and the burden
of everything that they do is them,
and the greatest gift that someone
can possess is the ability
to be able to forgive themselves
and accept that they are a well-meaning,
maelstrom of both reason
and contradiction, human being, an avatar,
who, like everybody else,
does not have an accurate roadmap
telling them what to do
and when to do it.
At the heart of the complex is the simple,
and at the heart of the simple
is the complex…
in this day and age, everybody lives,
breathes, thinks, dreams, and feels
within a world tailored to their own
wants, needs, likes, and dislikes –
whether they know it or not –
that is as superficial
but as hard to break free of as
a machine-built matrix…
when it comes to choosing
which path to take, which reality is best,
everybody has to weigh up
with their heart, within their mind,
within their soul, what matters
the most to them: freedom? Or confinement?
knowledge? Or ignorance?
Fakery? Or the power of discovering
your true identity,
and seeing the code of interconnectivity
and learning to find the balance
needed to survive within,
and transition seamlessly
between, the ever changing
worlds of the virtual and the real.
My Poem “Mark in the Mirror”
Sometimes we see things that are not there…
Sometimes we don’t see things
that are right in front of us…
Sometimes we can get lost in
the thought of a single stare…
Sometimes we see mistakes
and we automatically make order
out of the chaos and we filter out
all of the unnecessary things
that surround what we see –
in life, in people, in art –
and we naturally bring
the blurry into focus,
like the art of writing poetry.
Mistakes are natural,
mistakes are human –
however, mistakes are also annoying, perplexing, and for an artist
mistakes are futile in their drive
to want to share something
as close to as what they envisioned
and as close to what they imagined,
as any form of creativity can ever be…
Mistakes are imperfections –
however, mistakes are also
lessons to be learned from
and they are as necessary
for self-discovery
and self-examination
as listening and observing
to the specific rhythm and speed
with which a certain person speaks.
I have made more mistakes
than could ever be counted…
I have made more missteps
than I ever want to recall –
however, I am someone
who always makes a concerted
effort to look for all
the chinks in the armour,
to try and rectify my errors,
and to constantly search for a way
to redeem myself following
a period of illogical
inconsistencies and regrets,
and to take the time
to redefine myself
in order to weed-out
what I believe should not be
a part of my psychological
makeup, and exorcise once and for all
all the mistakes that have over time
become a part of the character
that I daily live with,
share a shadow with,
and who I see every time
I look in the mirror.
My Poem “Throwback”
Every day, I look at things,
I look at people, I look at places,
and in my mind I am thrown back in time…
Every day I am reminded about
some of the things I have done,
some of the people I have met,
some of the places I have visited,
and what always follows
is an intoxication of memories,
feelings, colours, that rise
to the surface – like the bubbles
of a glass of wine…
every day, I read things that I have written,
I remember what I did and with whom,
and I am overcome with a wave of déjà vu
that floods my thoughts with
echoes of what came before
and what I had compartmentalized…
every day, I hold on tight to who
and what means the most to me
and I try to remember every detail
of everything as accurately as I can,
while trying to correct for
Mandela Effect – which is a
prime example of how sometimes
our own memories can play tricks on us
and even blatantly make things up…
every day, something new happens to all of us –
even if we don’t realize it…
every day something new becomes
the inspiration for an explorer,
a storyteller, a musician,
a dreamer, a poet, that has such
a phenomenal and an amazing
effect that the aftershocks
from the revelations – that feel
like the tectonic shifts
that you can physically feel
when the Earth moves beneath you –
continue to influence you
in everything that you commit to afterwards…
the past, the present, the future,
the outside, the inside,
the old, the new, would not be what they are
and they would not mean what they do
without our own personal perspective…
the world is built upon things
and moments that are not meant to last –
however, if it were not for
all of the things that we sometimes lose,
all of the things that we leave behind,
and all of the things that are not meant
to last then we would never know
the true meaning, nor experience
the incredible power, of moments of nostalgia,
gratitude, and reflection from something
that can serve as a wormhole back in time
through which we can cast our mind’s eye
upon something in particular:
a throwback to an earlier time in our life.
My Poem ‘Balloons’
Where we have been
and where we are going
are tied together
by the threads of our lives;
while we are enjoying a good story
we never want it to come to an end;
darkness and light ties night to day
and day to night;
sometimes when we know
we are approaching the end of a great book
we will put it down and bookmark our place
so that we can pick up one day where we left off;
however, just as every writer
must finish writing their story,
every reader must follow a tale
to its conclusion,
and when they reach the last word of the last page
promise to return to the same story again and again –
the same, but different –
like periodically catching up with an old friend.
We all sometimes look at our own reflection
and do not immediately like the face that we see –
though someone else may look at the same face
and see the face of unparalleled infinite beauty;
we all should remember that a mirror
can only show us a distorted image of how we appear,
and the only true way of knowing
who the world sees when they look at us
is to go to the one person who knows us best
to describe us and tell us who they see
and what about us they most revere.
We all have reasons for what we do;
certain things and special people
have an indefinable gravity about them;
we all love people in our lives
in ways that we show every day,
but we sometimes feel a need to prove;
we all leave many clues;
I, myself, could never deny
an unbreakable connection –
once made, never severed –
because, just like the bound pages in a book,
bound people are linked forever
because that is what was always meant to happen.
Some people rise and fall by the resonance of a voice;
some hearts beat in perfect-time with other hearts,
and even when they are far-apart from one-another
they constantly sing “see you soon”;
falling in love is uncontrollable
and it is a fundamental instinct without choice;
all stories have chapters and twists,
beginnings and endings,
and some have a pace and a depth to them
that is as vast as space;
and though its true meaning and message
may not be as blatant as a telephone ringing,
the best thing about any story
under any cover is one that you can hold,
walk with, and even tie to something,
and is that which you should never let go of –
because once a story rises too high out of reach
it will become someone else’s,
and slowly drift away like the wind
carrying away a balloon of your own making.
My Poem ‘Thankful for’
As family prepare to gather,
as the sun shines
and the sky is blue –
as someone who is thankful,
as someone who is grateful,
who is both the loved and the lover,
I am thankful in more ways
than I could ever say
to be alive and to be able
to write this for you.
I take lots of time
thinking about the who,
the what, and the when
that have passed by like a river;
I constantly reflect
what I see and what I feel;
I have always considered
golden experiences
as memories to be made
a part of my DNA,
as well as simultaneously
to be remembered;
I have always believed
that no matter where you are in your life,
wherever you are in the world,
that there is always something
that to anybody else would seem small –
but to you that same something is a big deal.
As I have gotten older,
the things that I am thankful for have changed –
but that which matters the most to me
is still the same;
as I have lived, I have slowly come to realize
that life goes by faster than a bullet-train,
and things do sometimes happen
that you should not spend too much time
trying to explain.
Clouds form, rain falls;
colour is painted over the face of the dark;
there is no such thing as an impenetrable wall;
the seafloor, the sands of an island shore,
the photos of now compared to those of before,
that which will be forevermore:
the indescribable, the tangible,
the special, the spiritual –
that which only I will ever truly know –
is what I am the most grateful for;
however, the gift of love
given with all their heart
by the love of my life only to me
is the thing that I am the most fulfilled by
and in my life I am the most thankful for.
markthepoet.me 