sound
A Poem A Day #119: Sound
My Poem “Painting by Numbers”
The sun shines during the day…
the sky flashes during the night…
the heat is too much for some
people to take that they have to
spend most of their time
sitting in the shade…
within the dark clouds above
storms rage and echo the unparalleled
power of nature’s electricity
that manifests itself in the form
of both light and sound,
occasionally frenetically.
The summer months are usually
defined by the colours that are
seen emanating all around…
during the summer months
people usually take their time
to seek out a particular place
that they hope, or may already know,
will be somewhere special,
memorable, hopeful, and profound.
When painting a picture of the world
that they see, some people like to use
examples of other things
to compare their vision to,
for example: when someone sees
a beautiful person who is perfect
to them in every way, they may
compare them to a flower,
such as a daisy or a rose –
and in doing so they are
knowingly, or accidentally,
speaking in the language of poetry…
art, in its infinite forms, is an expression
of an artist who wishes to give
an example of who they are,
what they are, and what drives their heart
to share the story of something,
somewhere, or someone,
so powerfully, and yet so effortlessly
as if they were painting by numbers.
My Poem “We’re All In This Together”
The sound of pots and pans
being banged together
ring out at 7 o’clock every evening
from roof tops, from open windows,
from the doorsteps of houses
and apartment blocks
all across New York City,
and in many parts of
the United States of America –
and it is an amazing, humbling,
and emotional thing to behold.
The sound of clapping hands
echoes from street to street
all over the United Kingdom
every Thursday at 8 o’clock at night,
as people of all ages recognise
the hard work and the sacrifice
being undertaken by healthcare
professionals and “key-workers” –
from nurses to doctors,
from grocery store workers to bank clerks –
who turn up every day to their respective
places of work and who do their best
for those in the most need
at this time of great anguish –
and the sound that is produced
always generates a wave of emotion
that is, in my opinion, an example
of the best of humanity.
Every day the world loses people
who are irreplaceable…
every day we all mourn the loss
of our fallen brothers and sisters…
every day humanity loses
a member of its family…
every day we all have to keep
our distance from our loved ones
and from those people who
we may not know but who
we would not want to suffer
at the hands of the virus
that we all want to see the end of
as swiftly as possible so that
we can attempt to reevaluate
our lives and the reality
in which we find ourselves
that often feels as if
it has been shattered
like the shards of a broken mirror.
Life is not as it was,
and nothing will ever be the same again…
each and every death of everybody
who has lost their lives
is a scar upon the heart of us all,
and I hope that when this virus
has been finally subdued
from doing any more harm
each of us who are blessed
to still be alive and have reached
the other side of this massacre
will be able to find peace
and a deeper connection
between ourselves and all of humanity –
and especially when people are finally
able to overcome their fear
of keeping their distance
and physically interacting
with one another.
What is essential to life
is sometimes invisible to the eye…
what makes life worth fighting for
and worth living for is present
in the heart of every family member
who loves one another…
one of the most important things
in life is to be kind
and whenever we all find ourselves
presented with an opportunity
to show the depths of our humanity
there is no greater way than to
show a sign of hope –
in the form of a painted rainbow
or within the resonance of a sound
for all the world to see and to hear –
that is a clear and present example
of how everybody in this world
is bound to one another,
and no matter what we have to go through
we can get through anything and everything
just as long as we remember that
when it comes to staying alive
we are all in this together.
My Poem “Silent Light”
The sun does not make a sound to our ears –
and yet it has a voice and a song
that it sings every second on the same frequency
that it has been broadcasting and generating
for 4.6 billion years…
the Earth beneath our feet is constantly spinning
and in a perpetual state of motion –
and though when we are standing still
we believe Earth to be stationary
it is in fact traveling through space
at 67,000 miles per hour…
the heart in our chest
beats inaudibly even to ourselves –
and it is only when we use our sense of touch
in conjunction with our inner perception
of the rhythmic beauty of our life-sustaining
organ and instrument that we can understand
how precious our heart-beats are
and how important they are in realizing
how delicate, fragile, and fleeting life is
and why there are no gifts as amazing
as that of being loved and alive…
the sounds that we hear are echoes,
vibrations, and interactions,
between many individual sources all playing at-once –
even those things that orbit in the vacuum of space
do not do so silently, however as when we want
to hear those things that are so powerful
and mean so much to all of us
sometimes we have to use our senses in the right way
in order to fully hear the voices
and the sounds of the silent light.
My Poem ‘Temporal’
There is something entrancing
about hearing the tick, the tock,
and the hidden but vital mechanisms
that lie within the wooden-body
and the beautiful face
of a Grandfather-clock –
every movement, every sound,
every second that goes by,
tells a story about how precious
and fleeting moments of time are…
in the silent stillness of an old house
when all that can be heard
is the echo of an old time-piece
there is always a special feeling
to be found in every instant of peace.
With time comes change,
with change comes choice,
with choice comes both
the familiar and the unknown,
and with the unknown comes an opportunity
and a responsibility to grow…
there is no changing the past,
because everything that you see
all around you is built upon its bed-rock…
you can’t change the future,
because it hasn’t happened yet –
but what you can do is allow the past
to influence, change, and inform
what and how the future will appear to you…
you cannot change what was,
but you can start to weave a new thread of change
that could potentially one day out-live you.
I see change… I see the wake
of the passage of time everywhere I look…
I see things that once were
that have been replaced
by that which is now the way things are…
I see walls that were once doors…
I see mirrors that were once windows…
I see the old making way for the new –
but the constant in the middle of everything
still remains: me…
sometimes we have to be like a chameleon
and blend into whatever background
wherever we find ourselves –
changing on the outside,
while an echo of who we are
and who we always will be looks up and out
through our eyes from down-deep.
Time flies… time forces us to leave hours,
days, months and years behind…
time does not stop, but with the gift of memory
you can make a moment last forever…
time cannot be out-run,
no matter how fast or how far you can run –
but what you can do is make the best of the time
that you have and make the most of the time
that you share with those
who truly matter the most.
My Poem ‘Sound of the Silence’
Stars, planets, solar-storms, galactic-energy –
every sphere of the universe
produces music from a source within
that keeps them spinning
and generating their unique voice;
artists, composers, song-writers, vocalists –
every living and breathing man and woman
who has ever created something
and who has ever been inspired
to realise their lifes-work
is driven by a silent beating heart
within their chest more powerful
than could ever be imagined;
memories, recollections,
reminders of a time gone by
that just will not die
because they have no choice;
stories, movies, the eclectic soundtrack
of your childhood that is centred around
and continues to orbit
a wormhole of space and time
that continues to broadcast
and influence your life,
your thoughts, and your actions,
every second of every minute.
All hail the music of the silence;
all raise their hands to feel the vibrations
and the beat of something amazing and beautiful;
all hear the sound of the timeless;
all be entranced by the light of the light-house,
and look up in wonder at the sight
of the broken satellite;
all watch the disc of colour spin,
and allow yourself to slip back in time
to the endless summer days of golden sunlight;
all close your eyes and go on a journey
inside your mind and be carried away
by the waves of the universal
energy-current of the universe;
all listen to the crackle of the static
and then fall head-first into the vortex
that spins like an album of vinyl.
To me, silence is just music
that we haven’t yet discovered
how to listen to in the right way;
to me, music in its infinite forms
will always play throughout all eternity –
whether it is heard, or not,
the music of life can never be silenced;
to me, music is one of the only things
that can make you feel at home
as well as take you far away;
to me, all the world is a church of music
and all of humanity are receptors
and worshippers of a divine sound
that is sometimes both powerful and silent –
and that is why I say that we should all
put our hands to our chest
and proclaim with one voice:
all hail the silence.
My Poem ‘The Warped Tour Four’
Early rise… morning light…
open eyes… all is good, all feels right;
bags packed, phones charged,
an open road in front of us…
maximum speed achieved,
we are traveling with full-focus
I-75 all the way to Atlanta…
music fills us, music takes us,
music calls us, music sends out shock-waves
from far-away speakers, as well as from
the speaker in our chest that is our heart
which is louder than the loudest thunder.
The sun shines… the heat beats… we wait in-line…
we all feel this amazing anticipation
run through our bodies, from our head to our feet…
and within no time at all we are in,
and we are instantly hit by a wave of music and energy…
we feel like we have entered another dimension and world
in which time and space stretches into infinity…
everything we hear, everything we see, everything we feel,
to me is incomparable to anything else –
and nothing could ever have prepared us all
for how unbelievable every second here would be.
Music is transformative;
sometimes it is hard to put into words
what music means to those who love it;
music is the universe’s oldest,
and it’s most potent, form of magic;
there is no better way to have an experience than to share it –
and I will forever be glad to have been surrounded
by there family I was with when I was standing
among a mass of music revelers
with whom I share a connection
that every waking and unconscious hour
makes me feel blessed.
Bands play on many stages…
music screams out loud, far, wide, and deep…
the many faces of strangers all united as-one –
a music family of many colours, all one race.
We are all here to enjoy the chain of moments,
memories, embraces, and emotions;
we are all rotating in a cycle
and in orbit of a pulsating energy core
that keeps us all in motion;
we are all a part of history in the making;
we are all the answer to how
our world is ours for the saving.
The music falls down…
the heat breaks, the sun begins to set…
the end of day song starts to play…
we are leaving the epic festival of sound
that has all day long caught our breaths…
we are heading home, we are cutting-short
what for us has been an incredible tour…
we all know that to truly make it somewhere in life
you cannot do it alone…
we had the most phenomenal day
that we will remember all our lives –
so say we, The Warped Tour Four.
My poem ‘The Drummer’
It was all he heard…
it was all he felt…
it was all he wanted to do…
every morning, every night,
the drummer felt a longing,
and the beat was the only cure…
over and over again,
the drummer played the rhythm
of his favourite beat in his mind,
with the fingers of his hands,
and every time that he tapped his feet…
it was as if it was his own heart beating…
it was as if it was his own pulse racing…
it was the most epic sound
he had ever heard in his life,
since he was a baby
and he used to look out his bedroom window
and listen to the thundering sound
of the pita-patter on the window-pane
when it was raining…
it was more powerful
than any kind of hunger or craving…
to Mark, the music was like the heart-beat of God…
to Mark, the music that came from his soul
was something that was transcendental…
to Mark, the music was what kept him
from becoming among humanities lost…
to Mark, the music he heard was what he loved…
and to him it was beautiful.
Becoming a member of a marching-band
had been a dream of Mark’s since he was a child –
Mark had everything that any band
would ever want, or ever need: Mark loved music,
and he loved his favourite instrument…
even as a child Mark would turn his parents’
pots and pans into home-made drums,
and he used to play them,
and his parents let him be free
and express himself, and go wild –
and if anybody came around to visit
Mark and his parents
they would see and hear
Mark playing the most phenomenal of beats,
and every day of his life
music, especially his music,
has become more and more important.
Mark tried-out to be in his high-school band…
Mark had dreams of one day playing
in the marching-band of his favourite
college football team…
Mark played and practiced every minute
he was awake or asleep,
and he knew that it he just played
with all his heart
that everything in his life
would happen as he always dreamed it would,
as if it were all a part of a plan –
however, all Mark could play,
all Mark wanted to play,
all Mark loved to play
was the beat that he heard within…
and when his moment came
to show just how incredible a player
and a drummer he was Mark froze…
and then he did what he always did –
he played the music that he knew and loved.
Mark never made it into the marching-band…
Mark was disappointed to not be able to play
and march in front of his favourite football team –
but he wasn’t sad…
to lift his spirits, Mark’s parents ordered him
a band-uniform all of his own and they told him to
“never stop playing” the music that made him
the most happy and the music he had always known…
Mark’s parents told him to go out in his uniform,
with his drum, and “fill the world” with his music
that to them was like no other –
and that is exactly what Mark did:
he went out…
he walked down the main street
of his home town’s most busiest road…
he stopped people and traffic
to a stand-still everywhere he went…
and as he played he knew
that because of his music
he would always be remembered
as the boy, and later the man,
who would always be known as
“The Drummer”.
My Poem ‘Words of Destiny’
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.
Mark The Poet 