The world

My Poem “Emptiness”

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

Empty streets… empty buildings…
locked doors… isolated people…
fear and stress lingers in the air.
Why is this happening?
What is the reason for this
cursed pandemonia?
The entire world is trying
to keep its spirits up
while attempting to stay inside
and weather the storm of panic,
death, and uncertainty that has
gripped almost all of the countries
of the world.

Why? Why? Why? Why?
Why has this happened?
Why was this allowed to happen?
The people of the world have been
brought to their knees by an invisible enemy
that everybody is at war with
and is looking for any way possible
to find a cure for this rampant disease.

I am like so many others:
I am trying to keep smiling,
I am trying to stay calm,
I am trying to carry on the best that I can,
I am trying to stay hopeful –
but then I turn on the television
and I am reminded about
just how many people
this world has lost,
just how bad this deadly pandemic
that we are facing is,
and sometimes I find it hard
to find the words and the strength of composure
that I usually wear wherever I go.

There is nowhere to go…
there is nothing to do…
there is only silence,
there is only a void of space
where things used to be,
there is only this feeling of…
there is only this feeling of…
of… of… of… of emptiness
that I hope and pray
will soon come to an end.

My Poem “I Live In Hope”

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

At this very moment,
as I look outside my window,
all is quiet, all is still;
however, when I turn on my television,
it feels like the whole world
has been quarantined,
because so many people
have been stricken by an invisible contagion –
while those who have not yet been infected
are asking themselves if they,
or a member of their family,
will soon be forced into isolation
because they are the most likely
to be taken ill.

It is an unfortunate time of fear,
of single-mindedness, and of selfishness –
because some people are acting as if
the end of the world was on the horizon,
and though this newly discovered and fast-
spreading virus is definitely something
to be taken seriously,
I think that we should all be worrying
more about the most vulnerable
and the least immobile of the people
of the world rather than just bunkering
ourselves away and hoping that
people who can’t help themselves will be ok.

The Coronavirus, Covid-19,
has effected the entire world,
and so many countries and people
have been cut off from the rest of the world
until the worst of this world wide crisis
has passed;
however, the worst thing about all that is happening,
all that has happened, and the constantly
rising count of how many people
are now infected and how many people
have died as a result of the Coronavirus,
is that most of us are powerless
in our ability to effect the course of this crisis
and all that we can do is wash our hands,
be mindful of our own potential symptoms,
and to keep physical interactions
with other people at a minimum –
but I cannot help but think that all of this
could have been avoided if when
this new virus started to become more
prevalent and virulent
certain people had chosen to inform
everybody around the world
as to the severity of what was rising,
the potential of what was spreading,
and what should have been contained
at its initial source of detection.

I hope everybody is safe…
I hope the majority of people
will be well again soon
and they will be able the fight
their way through this new threat…
I hope that this disastrous new virus
can be stopped in its tracks
before even more people die
as a result of being infected by it…
I hope people continue to be mindful
of themselves and of the needs
of others who are the most at need…
I hope that the whole world can
come together, to be with one another
via all the means that we have they days
so that we can all help one another
to ride out the tumultuous waves of the day
and find a way through this troubling
time of isolation, of contraction,
to a place of eventual recovery,
that this time of pandemic pandemonium
has forced us all into…
as always, I live in hope.

My Poem “The World Book”

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

The layers of our world
are like the infinite pages
of a book of stories, secrets,
truths, colours, and characters
that is so vast and epic in scale
and in depth that if it were
not already a planet
it would need to be as big
as the Earth is in order
to capture and to understand
the mysterious, the thrilling,
the poetic, the dramatic,
the suspenseful,
the often unbelievable
and the unpredictable
world that we live in
and which we all have our own
opinion of concerning where it all began,
where we are, and where are collective
story will ultimately one day take us.

Most things in this world
have a system to them
that are as predictable
and occur as regular as clockwork;
however, because of several
outside influences,
some twists and turns in every journey
require everything and everyone
to adapt to what they find themselves facing
and become a chameleon of the times
that they find themselves living in.

Some things will always change,
some things will stay the same –
but no matter what anybody does
or doesn’t do
this world will keep turning
and creating new life,
because this world was once blessed
by the light of creation of our mutual sun
and the most important star
in our sky that has never
stopped shining down upon us.

This universe of galaxies, of stars,
of planets, of rock, of gases,
of matter, and of energy
that we do not yet fully understand
the behaviour of but we have,
of course, already given a name to,
is the beginning, it is life,
it is everything,
it is where things makes sense,
it is where we are still learning
every nuance and characteristic of
and the reason for its ultimate existence.

Everybody in this universe –
especially those of us here on Earth –
are a blessed and gifted storytellers,
even if they don’t already know they are,
and each with their own story and version
of reality to interpret and to convey;
because it is in the nature of everything,
in everybody, in every atom,
in every consciousness,
in every thought, in every instinct,
in every idea to be it’s best self,
but since we all mostly have a choice
in what direction we will choose to take
the path, the actions, and the outcome
of everyone’s life can only be uniquely theirs
and no one else’s –
which can be a source of confusion for some people;
however, when you really think about it,
life on any kind of scale is not meant
to be fully understood
but each of us naturally have our own
beliefs and thoughts about why things
are the way that they are,
why some things will always turn out
the way that they always have done,
and what is it about all the stories
ever told, retold, and reinterpreted
that just fits perfectly into the vast library,
that when seen from space
is spherical in appearance,
that has a name, “Earth”,
and which will eternally be
the title of the book that is our world.

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.

My Poem “Out of the darkness cometh the light”

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

Out of the darkness cometh the light…
when we move past moments
of pain and despair it is possible to find
exactly who and what we had been hoping
and praying would come into our life…
after we overcome periods of chaos and confusion
we can encounter signs and reasons
to not give up –
and when things can seem too much to handle,
and when you feel like no matter what you do
you can’t do anything right,
there always follows flashes of insight
that show you the way that you need to go
to bring order back to the world
and the torch of illumination
that you need to see
that no matter how black
the clouds that appear to be swirling
above your head might seem
out of the darkness
will one day cometh a light
that will make all that happened to you
feel like it needed to happen
so that you could once again
rest your head at night
and dream dreams of the beautiful,
the hopeful, the best, and the bright.

My Poem “More than we might know”

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

Christmas Day is but once a year,
however the way that some people
make us feel every day
is enough to make us what to cry
tears of love and joy
because we know how lucky we are to
have them close and near.

Christmas time is when people tend
to think about others more than usual,
and Christmas time is also
when people often also
tend to reflect back upon
everything that life has tested them with,
especially as we all grow older
and we remember things in the past
that we may have accidentally taken for granted.

Everybody is this life needs somebody
to hear them, to think about them,
to give them the gift of their time –
even is it is only in the form of
a greetings card that tells someone
that you were thinking about them,
because no one who has done so much
good for other people ever deserves
to be forgotten or left behind.

Time is precious…
people are vulnerable…
there are people in this world
who have lost everything
because of a natural disaster,
because of homelessness,
because life has not been kind to them –
and this time of the year is when
a large population of the world
considers what means the most to them,
and the greatest gift
that we can all give one another –
as members of the collective
human family of this planet –
is respect, peace, and an opportunity
for everybody to find happiness
while doing something
that gives their life meaning.

We can all be better people sometimes…
we can all be better at communicating
our feelings – however, there are times
when talking is the hardest thing to do,
especially when you feel like nobody
could ever understand
what you are going through…
we can all be better listeners –
however, the ability to fully listen
and to hear what someone is trying
to tell you is harder than you think.

We can all be there for somebody
in particular when they need
the gift of someone to be there for them,
to make time for them,
to embody the spirit of the season,
and to get them through the sometimes
harsh Winter of the Northern Hemisphere
and the sometimes uncomfortable Summer
of the Southern Hemisphere –
because no one is immune to life,
because everybody is human,
and it is important that we all
remember, as often as possible,
who we are, what we are,
how short our time to shine is,
and that it takes almost no effort at all
to be present in the life
of somebody who may needs us
more than we might know.

My Poem “Under the influence”

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

Everybody is always
under the influence of something
or someone – however, sometimes
the strings of influence are so
faint that they almost look
invisible to the eye
even though, within our minds,
our thoughts and our feelings
are unquestionably being coaxed
into changing how we see the world,
how we think about the world,
how we interpret the world,
how we interact with the world –
and the reason why we are who we are
and why the world is the way that is it
can all be traced back to the power
that certain things, certain people,
certain circumstances, certain environments,
perhaps to certain opportunities when, where,
and how a small group of individuals
were inspired and influenced
to think something that
no one had ever thought before,
to believe something that
no one had ever believed before,
and to do something that
no one had ever done before,
and fundamentally change
and effect everything;
and the reason that we know
everybody who has ever lived
has been influenced by something,

at some time or another,
is because previous generations
always like to leave testaments
and echoes of themselves
for future generations to follow,
analyze, and interpret,
but without the true intention
of the creator in front of them
to compare the constantly evolving
product and result thereof.

Sometimes influences can easily
be seen, felt, and experienced –
because they are intentional…
sometimes influences are accidental…
sometimes influences can be like
a positive push by someone who
thinks that you have within you
the potential for something
that needs to be realized…
sometimes some influences can be bad,
counter-productive, or potentially dangerous –
especially those influences
that make you feel confused, angry,
or sad immediately after you
have been influenced by them.

Every day everybody is bombarded
by influences of every kind –
from the sun shining in the sky
to the sight of someone’s beautiful smile
that always fills you with love
at the same time that it makes you want to cry,
from a song on the radio that
compels you to sing-a-long
to an advertisement on television
trying to sell you something –
and that along the lines of how things have been,
that is how things will always be,
who the human race is as a species
and that is who we will always be, in some way:
under the influence.

My Poem “Pathways”

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

In life there are many pathways
that we all have to travel down –
paths of space, paths of time,
paths of the mind that are made
by experience, by memory,
by feelings, by emotions –
that can be as solid as stone,
as tumultuous as the waves of an ocean,
as electrifying as the wires of a network,
as vital and as regenerative as the nerves
of central nervous system that
carries messages and signals
at lightning-fast speeds
throughout a human body
in order to maintain a normal
state of autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Every day pathways reveal themselves
to people who have been searching
for a route between darkness and light,
between unconsciousness and life,
between the foggy underworld of dreams
and the clarity of reality,
between adolescence and maturity,
and sometimes the steps that need to be
taken may seem alien, forced, and uncertain –
but, as is the case with most things,
the more progress that you make
the easier that it feels
to traverse the gulf between
one side of a road of choices to the other,
as long as you remember to always
look left and right along the way,
and vice versa.

Not all pathways are easy to walk down…
not all pathways are able to be found…
not all pathways have a definitive end…
not all pathways are as straight as an arrow
and more likely than not they have several
twists, turns, bumps, and bends…
not all people realize that they have
actually been on a journey throughout
their lives until they look back,
until they see, until they remember,
and until they realize that life
is the precious gift that we are all
surrounded by every day –
and that is why I believe
that people should take a greater
interest in what is going on around them,
what everybody can do to effect
the world around them,
and realize why it is necessary
for everybody around the world
to consider themselves a part of a
single ecosystem and organism
of infinite, interlinked, coexisting,
cooperative, and codependent
variables that invariably define
the fate of life on this planet
and where the nexus
and the “finish line” of everything
and everybody will be when
there is the ultimate convergence
of every single one of life’s
matrices of pathways.

My Poem “360”

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

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”

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

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.