Science fiction

My Poem “The Sounds of Earth”

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 
If looked down upon from space
our planet, Earth, would be seen
to be a shining blue sphere
teaming with possibilities
and full of potential;
however, you would never be able
to see everything and everyone
that exists on our beautiful world from orbit
because you would be too removed -
but if you were able to listen to what humanity
broadcasts, transmits, and has shared
every moment of every day,
for over half a century now,
then you might find it hard to understand
everything that everyone is saying to one another;
however, if you were to travel farther from Earth -
say fifty light-years away -
then you would be able to receive
the transmissions of humanity
that left our planet fifty years ago,
and it would be like
discovering a message in a bottle,
or an audio signal of an era in time,
that travelled at the speed of light from its source
to be heard by anyone or anything that
was listening in Earth’s direction.

Earth has always been a world full of stories,
of civilisations, of beliefs, and our ideas
about why things are the way that they are,
and Earth has always been a world of invention
and of dreamers who hope to be given the answer
to the question of whether we are alone in the universe…
for all of human existence, groups of individuals -
such as scientists, artists, musicians,
and believers in a particular religion -
have sought to reach out their grasp
and touch the face of the unknown,
and reveal the truth about the meaning of life
and why we are here;
and since we have had the means and the resources
to send living beings into space to relay back
what awaits us far beyond the clouds -
from dogs, to chimpanzees, to humans -
as well as robotic sojourners capable
of sending back images of the planets
and the moons of our solar system,
as well as photographs of the extraordinary
phenomenon of our galaxy,
humanity has been uncovering
the history of the universe
as well as the possibilities of reality.

In 1977, two gold disks were launched
along with their respective Voyager spacecraft
containing a greeting from the people of Earth,
as well as images and depictions of
human anatomy and the building blocks of life,
the location of the sun and our solar system,
and also recordings of some of the sounds
that can be found and heard on our planet -
such as the sound of waves crashing,
birdsong, whale song, and a selection of
some of the human languages that our species
has evolved to use for communication
between one another for centuries…
even now, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 -
not to mention all the other probes
we have sent out into space -
continue their mission and their journey
into the great unknown,
hopefully to be one day found
by another, similar, space-faring, intelligent,
innovative, and inquisitive race of beings
who might wish to see whom it was that
chose to take a leap of faith and send
an invitation to a fellow member
of the galactic community to visit a beautiful planet
that is full of people, plants, animals,
and other things that need to be seen and heard
to be truly believed and understood;
however, it’s entirely possible that
we have already been visited by an intelligent
interplanetary extraterrestrial species of explorers,
who were drawn to our world a long time ago
and who have already bore witness
to the wonders of our planet,
and who have long since become obsessed
with the infinite number of the sounds of Earth.

Episode #35: ‘Doctor Who’ – S8, E4: “Listen” (2014), a review

Mark Hastings Podcast, TV , , , , , , , , ,
In this episode Mark does a review of one of his favourite episodes from one of his favourite TV series: ‘Doctor Who’ – S8, E4: “Listen” (2014) written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. Starring Peter Capaldi as The Doctor and Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald.

Mark The Poet – The Podcast: Episode #30

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

My Poem “Say No To Dystopia”

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

When I woke up this morning,
in my mind I felt like I had travelled
back in time to the year 1989 –
over thirty years in the past –
to a time in my life
when I began to become absolutely fascinated
by films and TV shows that depicted
what life would look like thirty years,
a hundred years, a thousand years in the future;
and this morning, while watching
a film called ‘Millennium’ –
a movie that centred around
the prospect and the concept
of time travellers travelling
back and forth in time
to save people before they died
and transporting them into the future –
I realized that almost thirty years before,
as a child, I was most likely watching
the same film that I was watching now on DVD
back then on VHS tape,
and while just as completely
enthralled now as I was by
what I saw depicted back then
I realise now that at the time
I did not fully understand what
the film trying to say.

Every film, every TV show, every book
whose story takes place
in a future setting and at a future time
always attempts to predict an accurate
depiction of how the world of tomorrow
will look, sound, feel,
and what the life of our descendants
will be like based upon an extrapolation
of the direction that some things
seem to be logically taking –
such as technology, fashion,
and the way that people treat one another –
and sometimes the world to come
is predicted to be one of hope, optimism,
universal understanding
and peaceful coexistence,
while some cautionary tales
predict that we may all be slowly
but surely spiralling into a world
that can only be described as being
dystopian
in which the children of tomorrow
have to live a hard and painful life
because of the short term actions
and mistakes of our present
which to them would be perceived
as their past.

Science Fiction writers and futurists
have been trying to warn people
what the future might be like,
and what the future world might
look like, if we – humanity –
do not stop and take a good, long,
and deep look at ourselves
while asking ourselves
where we are going wrong
and what we can do to build a better
world to leave for future generations
to be thankful for.

At this moment in time,
it sometimes feels like the world
is teetering on the edge of a precipice
from which there will be no coming back from:
a potential future that has been prophesied about
in science fiction tales for almost
a hundred years –
from H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’
to films like ‘Waterworld’ ‘Mad Max’,
‘The Matrix’, ‘Blade runner’,
and ‘The Terminator’ movies,
which all depict possible versions of our world
and a dark vision of the future
in which Earth’s natural resources
are in short supply or have been completely depleted entirely
and humanity is mostly living a day to day existence of not always knowing
how they are going to survive
and if it is possible for them to leave
a legacy going forwards that generations
to come will be proud of.

Humanity always has a choice
about which direction they want to go
in terms of technological interdependency,
the destruction of the natural world,
and the way they we take
what we have for granted –
and time will definitely tell
whether the predictions of those who either predict a positive version of the future
or those who predict a negative version of the future will ultimately be judged to be right;
however, what is as clear as a crystal ball
is that whatever happens in the future
to humanity and to the world around us,
every one of us are all the architects
of what has yet to come
and by influencing the people
in a position of power now
to want to give the gift of optimism
for the children of the future –
some who might not even be born yet –
we can be a part of making a potential
utopia by promising to keep
the predictions already made
of a potential world-wide armageddon
or an inevitable dystopia
tales of science fiction
that will never become a reality.