stories

My Poem ‘In view of the Trocadero’

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

You can’t beat a great seat
near a window with a great view –
whether it be a panoramic-view in Italy
that features the epic and awe-inspiring sight
of a volcano called “Mount Vesuvius”,
or the watery-splendor of the majestic fountains
of the Palais de Chaillot in France,
or standing on the rocky-top of Tennessee…
there are some sights and some places
that irrevocably stay with you.

So much art has been created…
so many poems have been written…
so many stories have been generated…
so many songs have been christened
with the identity and the inspiration
that they will always be known for…
so many things cannot be captured
with a photograph, or with words –
because no matter what is seen or said
about a place in particular
there is always so much more…
memories from childhood of a place
that we visited mean so much
because they were the first time
that we went there,
and nobody ever forgets
their first time going somewhere…
legends are built upon
the retelling of tales
and the experiences of people
who wanted the history of the world
to never forget what it is
and what it was about a place
that gave people a reason to say
why it is that they care
and what is the most important thing
about a place that they want to share.

When you are looking out the window of an airplane
you feel like you are within
touching-distance of heaven…
when you are sitting on a bench in Golden Gate Park
and marveling at the oasis
of spell-binding beauty that you see
at the very heart of the city of San Francisco…
when you are standing on a seaside boardwalk
and you become intoxicated
by all that stimulates your senses
as you become hypnotized by the sight
of the bright sunlight
shimmering on the ocean waves below…
when you are somewhere that instantly
becomes somewhere that means the world to you,
you will take that place with wherever you go…
just like the view that I have now of The Trocadero –
a small reminder of a place with the same name,
that lives on even though it is far from home.

My Poem ‘One Giant Leap’

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Small steps… few words…
giant leaps… new worlds…
sometimes to do the extraordinary
we have to go to places
we have never been…
sometimes to see things
we have never seen
we have to rocket away
from what we know
until we feel the pull
of a new source of gravity…
writing and telling stories
is a gift that has always been me…
writing a poem is like expressing a daydream,
writing a story and inventing a brand new world
of unique characters and situations
is like nothing else:
to me it is like letting the inspiration wolf
inside me out so that it can howl loud and run free.

Things grow… things begin as one thing,
and when they are fully-formed
they are something else…
at first, when something or someone
is first learning to find their feet
and walk tall most of the time
they take things slow…
when something or someone looks
at their own reflection
and they recognize themselves for the first time
for what they are that is when
they know what they must do,
and they begin to feel things
that they have never felt about themselves.

An idea can start as a single sentence,
and then that sentence can grow into a poem,
and then that poem can grow
into being a short-story, a novella…
and then, before you know it,
that same single idea has become
a fully-fledged story of its own
of people, places, and experiences,
that are so potent and are so powerful
that they can fill an entire book…
it cannot be quantified,
there is no equation that you can follow…
a poem, a story, an idea can grow steadily
over time into being
a force of nature in and of itself
with its own ideas and voice
about where it should go…
when writing any kind of story
you need to allow whomever your story is about
to find their own heart, their own soul,
their own spirit…
every story has a beginning, and an end –
but, sometimes, there is no way of knowing
how, when, and where, until you take
a step back from it and you allow it
to talk to you from far away
as well as up-close and personal.

I have written a story…
I have written a book…
I have spent hours, days, months,
writing, reading, editing, understanding,
and learning about what who my characters are
and going on a journey of discovery and identity
exploring a different, but familiar, world –
and, most importantly, I have not been afraid
to take risks into a sometimes dark
ocean of imagination and wading deep…
some times you have to learn to not think
too much about what you don’t know
and stop worrying about what you might find
when the time comes for you
to let your mind, your pen, your fingers,
and your words do the talking
when you decide to take your life’s small steps
and turn them into one giant leap.

My Poem ‘Where did you come from? I wasn’t expecting you?’

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Within the blink of an eye,
within the flash of a burst of sunlight,
within an instant of time,
within a single simple impression
that touches you
when you see something
or someone at first-sight…
have you ever considered
what that moment is made up of
and where it comes from?
Have you ever thought about
what all the world
and all life is built upon?

There is always a before,
and there is always an after…
there is always energy,
and there is always matter…
there are always things
that you can’t understand
until you go through them…
there are always realities
that you can’t imagine
until you see them…
the most undeniable thing about life
is that you can never know everything
about it, about everyone who makes it,
about the depths and the secrets
of the universe beyond the sky
and our galaxy’s periphery outer-limit –
because every sphere has its own world…
every place has its own laws of nature…
every planet, every region of space,
has its own history, creation, story,
leaps in evolution, and future.

There is a reason for everything…
there is a reason we are all here…
there is a reason why nothing
can suddenly turn into something…
there is a reason for hope…
there is a reason for fear…
there is a reason for why
there are things that we need to know,
and there is a reason and a meaning
behind what makes us smile
and what brings us to tears.

Some things in life we hope for,
we plan for, we expect,
and we need to happen
to give our life the drive
and the spark to fill the world
with all that we were born to give…
sometimes when you are not expecting
to find paradise or perfection
you can stumble upon an oasis
or someone who to you is the most beautiful…
some things are so precious and meaningful,
and in every way they must be held
close to your heart as a gift…
sometimes life can become so simple,
especially when you look up
and you see something new
and you say to yourself loud and clear:
where did you come from?
I wasn’t expecting you?

My Poem ‘The Good Reader’

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From acorn to tree…
to paper… to writer…
from life to inspiration…
from the pen of a poet…
to the eyes
and the imagination of a reader…
from out of a cloud of chaos…
something new… something personal…
something that like the person
writing it down and the place
from where the paper
it is being written on came from…
something incredible made believable…
something two-dimensional brought to life
so that it may walk the walk of words
and then take a leap from the page
into the mind of the one
who is reading what is being described…
a world imagined and captured
like a bolt of lightning in a bottle…
something that is a testament
to the power of the human mind…
it is amazing what a writer can do
and what pattern of magical words
they can weave…
it is amazing what a writer
can make a person believe…
epic journey’s have begun
and have been taken
by readers following every word
of every sentence of a writer’s story…
adventures of every height, depth,
and distance have been undertaken
by people who yearn to escape reality
and let their mind and their heart run-free…
over the centuries and after all the tales
that have been told there is still nothing
better to read than a story
that is based on true-events…
even to this day there is no better thing
to experience than to be told a story
and to hear a story while sitting around
a campfire at night with a group of friends…
ghost-stories, recollections,
tales of what, where, when, how, and who with…
some stories sometimes are so amazing
and miraculous that it is hard to know
what is imaginary and what is the real-thing…
a story, like a dream, is a world
that everybody steps into, lives,
and then takes something away from…
a story, a book, a world of characters
and people who we find within a tale
that must be told and read
can teach us something that we never knew
and it can also tell us something
about ourselves…
in countless bookstores, libraries,
on countless displays and book-shelves,
there is untold treasure to be found,
infinite sunsets and sunrises to be seen,
as if staring at the horizon from a pier…
sometimes it is just impossible
to put a book or a story down
once you have begun reading it –
and no matter where a book
or a story takes you
there is only one thing that you can do,
and only one thing that you want to do:
follow the words of a writer
and be a good reader.

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My Poem ‘Sound of the Silence’

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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 Stranger Things’

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The stranger things are,
the stranger things matter;
the stranger things are what shine
far away in the dark,
and they are as beautiful and mysterious
as the planets and the stars;
the stranger things become
the more that we think about them,
and the more that we become invested
in the strange things of the world
the more our heart beats faster.

Everybody is “normal” in their own way,
and yet equally as strange;
everybody is a character in someone-else’s story,
and a figure in someone-else’s painted landscape;
everybody can be “at home”
at the same time that they are “away”;
everybody can be beyond who they see
when they look at their own reflection in a mirror
and wear within their mind a vastly-different face.

To me, the stranger things are
the more interesting they are;
to me, the longer something stays unexplained
the more intrigued and the more drawn to it I am;
to me, the stranger things in life –
the mysterious, the one-of-a-kind, the extraordinary –
are constantly leaving their mark for me to find,
like a calling-card;
to me, the stranger things –
the unknown, the questions, the fables,
the stories of aliens, fairies, and monsters –
are so inspiring and amazing,
the more I hear, the more I see, the more I imagine.

What can seem strange to one person
can seem “every-day” to another;
what can seem fantastic to a child,
or to someone who is young-at-heart,
can seem to someone with a closed-mind
like something that could only be found
between the pages of a book-cover;
what I have learned in my life,
as a story-teller and a story-reader,
is that anything and every-thing
can be a fountain and a treasure-trove
of thoughts and energy –
and that life, if nothing else,
is never boring and can be always interesting;
living and breathing in a world deeply
brings with it oracles of gifts,
and they can be found in the strangest of places
filled with the strangest of things.

My Poem ‘The World of My Stories’

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

A person’s life is filled with different characters;
a person’s world is filled with many horizons;
a person’s life can be organized and thought of
as like a book of interconnected chapters;
a person’s view of the world changes over time
as they live, experience, and grow older –
and, from my perspective, I am so glad
for the life that I have had and still have,
because my life is a trove of golden-moments
and a limitless garden of inspirational memories
and musings that thrive and infuse
the palette of my writing,
because there is so much in abundance.

Just as every solar-system has a star at its centre,
the world of my poetry and stories too has a sun
that it revolves around and gives it gravity
and keeps it spinning;
just as every planet has a combination of gases
that make up its atmosphere,
the world where my ideas are born from
has all that is needed to keep my internal world
alive and its creations breathing, living, and evolving.

Worlds are built over time
and of many components and ingredients;
over a life-time, and while writing a story,
there is a constant preoccupation
to find truth, sense, and balance;
some worlds can be vast, and some worlds can be small –
expanding and contracting, depending on a person’s
state of mind and their environment;
over time we all collect many things in many ways –
however, it isn’t until you start thinking about
writing a story of your own that you realize
that even the smallest of things
can be among that which is the most important.

Usually, the idea for a new story comes to me like a dream;
for the most part, what a story will be about
when I am writing one all depends and is centered upon
something I have felt or something I have seen;
when I first begin writing a story
it is like I am learning to walk again
and not worrying too much about or counting my steps;
when I get into a story and I have fully found my footing
and I know where my story is going
it is then that I race towards its ending
without fear of losing my breath.

I love writing stories –
however, to me, writing a story
is like running a marathon;
to me writing poetry is like going on a sprint
through the green and blue world of my head –
and it is while writing poetry
that I get to let my imagination go wild,
and I get to sometimes write what I see;
writing a story is like creating and making
something that to you is a labour of time and love;
I am a writer, and more than anything I love to write –
however, I sometimes feel like to describe
what I see when I look within
there could never be enough words,
and it is then that I wish I could find a way
to show people what lies within me
and take them on a tour
around the world of my stories.

My Poem ‘Thor’s Hammer’

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The summer heat breaks…
there is a change in the weather…
the clouds are gathering…
a bolt of lightning from the sky
strikes the ground and makes the Earth shake…
the world falls deadly-silent…
before there is the most almighty sound
of deafening thunder.

Odin’s son, Thor – the god of thunder –
is wielding his weapon…
the favourite son of Asgard
is awakening in Viking heaven…
a power as old as time
surges through the veins of the chosen one…
the energy of life-itself invigorates
and binds the god to the hammer
and the hammer to the god.

It was willed that only one
who would be worthy
could ever pick up and wield
the weapon of destiny…
it was made a law of nature
that one could only use
such a divine conductor of change
if only they first have within their heart
an unconditional will to do what is right…
when the hammer of thunder was first forged
within it was laden and intertwined
a piece of timeless perfection
that could only be possibly witnessed
if you were to fly into and see
the heart of a star –
that which is so much more luminescent
than what we may think of as starlight…
Thor’s hammer is capable of leveling mountains –
but to the god of thunder it has no weight,
and he can do with it what he wishes
as freely as the author of epic poetry.

To wield the weapon of thunder,
to the son of Odin it is a great honour…
to have their name known alongside
that which like them is so mythic
they are almost magical,
to the prince of Asgard is happiness
the like of which only an outside observer,
or a worshiper of the old gods, can only wonder;
there have been many mythical symbols of fate
and epic power since time began
and stories were first conjured and spoken –
however, to me, there is no other grindstone
of fire, nor source of lightning,
with as much power
in every way, shape, and form,
as Mjölnir – the one and only, Thor’s hammer.

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My Poem ‘Intro’

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An entrance, an introduction,
an opening, a beginning…
where to begin is seldom an option,
what to do when you start something
is like being a knight
standing nose-to-nose
with a fire-breathing dragon…
most of the time
we enter something
in the middle of a story –
we mostly never come into something
at the very beginning,
nor at the absolute end –
however, we are always equipped
with all that we need
when we first enter into the world,
and it is only as time goes by
do we learn and pick up
the implements and the defenses
that we require to save us
from getting struck down
or devastatingly hurt.

Everybody’s life is an epic adventure.
In times gone by,
heroes heard the calling
that they had been waiting for all their lives
as if it were as distinctive and alluring
as that of the call of a song-bird.
Whether a cowboy or an outlaw
in the old-west of America,
or an astronaut on the cusp
of the final frontier,
the boundless unknown of a wild open space
holds the potential
of fulfilling a life and a dream come true
that constantly brings a smile to the face
of those who live for the spark
that dwells where the land leaves no trace.

Most people are first exposed
to other worlds through stories;
most people first feel
the touch of the divine
when the veil of heaven
falls right in front of them;
most people can only believe
what they can see;
most people are not truly
awake to the world
until they have been fully awoken.

The best of things
begin with an insatiable sound:
a beat, a melody, a voice, a keystroke –
the contact of two separate things
connecting and intertwining;
there is nothing as jaw-dropping
as seeing a lightning-storm happening
in the dark clouds above
that looks so beyond understanding
and like something that only God
could be the reason for,
because it is so breathtaking;
the first things of anything
are always the ingredients
and the building-blocks that will grow
like the snowflakes that settle
and cover a mountain-top with snow.
You may be young,
you may be old,
you may think that you know
all that there is to know –
but, believe me,
everything that has happened up to you
until now was nothing but the intro.

My Poem ‘Vampire State of Mind’

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What makes a vampire a Vampire
is all in the blood…
what drives a vampire
and what a vampire dreams about
would send shivers down a human spine
and strike fear into the heart of a man
and freeze their blood faster than
a river that runs still
under the sky of winter moonlight.

When the darkness falls,
and the stars above reveal themselves,
that is when the creatures of night-mares rise
and are filled with over-flowing power
and revitalized health
that feeds their hunger
just as much as that which they crave,
and it is then when nothing and no-one is safe
from the blood-drunk
who are in search of fresh prey –
and if your neck does have the misfortune
to come close to the sharp fangs of a Vampire
then say a prayer to god as fast as you can
before you sadly expire.

Stories have been told for centuries…
Vampires of all names
have risen from their coffins after-dark…
there is an allure for some people,
and there is an aura that surrounds
those who find peace
kindling the miracle gift
that is life’s spark.

A lust for life…
an endless thirst…
an aversion to sunlight…
a vocabulary of other-worldly words…
an understanding that death
is just another word for transformation…
a dance with the devil…
a passion and an obsession…
a secret desire to be the master
over another’s fate and will.

A vampire is of a time…
a vampire is eternal…
a vampire can only live if others die…
a vampire’s spirit is the most indomitable…
a vampire drinks blood as if it were red wine…
a vampire constantly walks the twilight line…
a vampire will always find a way to survive…
there are those who are not actual Vampires,
but who share many Vampire-like attributes,
and who have, what some may call,
a Vampire state of mind.