thoughts

My Poem ‘Morningstar’

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

To me, writing is like driving;
to me, writing is like flying;
to me, writing is like diving;
to me, writing is like searching;
to me, writing is like remembering;
to me, writing is like imagining;
to me, writing is like smiling;
to me, writing is like crying;
to me, writing is like sharing;
to me, writing is like exorcising;
to me, writing is like star-gazing;
to me, writing is like trying
to capture something breathtaking
that almost defies explaining.

When the morning-star rises
it calls to all of us;
when the morning light shines
life below the surface of the Earth
is tempted to break-through the dust;
when the morning air is inhaled
into a near-infinite number of lungs
every-thing breathes in each-other;
when the morning colours reveal themselves
is when something amazing
and unexpected always occurs.

When I write
I look out,
I see things,
I feel something
and then I think…
when I write
sights and sounds become emotions
and meaning is transformed into words
that feel like they are
ready to be spoken on the tip of my tongue…
when I write
an entire new world of wonder
is built with every blink…
when I write
my imagination and my thoughts
race, explode, and flash brightly
like the lightning of a thunder-storm…
to me, writing is akin to watching
and experiencing in all its epic-magnificence
the great gift of seeing the sun rising.

The planet Venus is so far away
but shines so bright in the sky
that it is often mistaken for a star;
it isn’t until you see something up-close
that you can know if it is truly
all that you wished for it to be
when it was far-reaching and yet fascinating;
it isn’t every-one and every-thing
who gets to inspire and change the course of a life,
when in perspective to most things
they are but a dot in the dark;
I have been inspired by many things
since I first began writing,
but to me nothing and no-one
could ever compare to the beautiful shining face
of my angel who I see each and every morning.

My Poem ‘Love is an understatement’

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

Could a single word
every truly describe
the sparkle of belonging
and the beautiful infinity that you see
in the love of your life’s eyes?
Is it ever possible to understand
the reason why the stars shine so bright
and yet are so far away?
Is there anything more incredible
than sharing the miracle vista of a sunrise?
What can you say when you have said so much
and yet there is so much more to say?

There you are…
there is your face that I always see;
there is my star in the dark,
there is my heart’s desire,
there is my soul-mate
who makes me Me;
there you sit staring back at me;
there I go imagining myself with you
and you with me;
there you are, my incredible angel;
there before my eyes
I see the love of my life,
and you are so phenomenal
you are beyond beautiful.

A look can speak volumes;
words only have power
when they are understood;
true love is like a flower
when it blooms;
when your heart beats for someone else
you feel like you are in the middle
of an intense emotional flood
that gives rise to tears,
makes your thoughts form
and then pop like soap bubbles,
and makes you feel like you are on fire,
and you literally cannot hold back
the rush of your blood.

The moment that I saw you
something changed in me;
the moment that I told you
that I loved you
was only eclipsed in my mind
by the moment when you told me
that you loved me;
the moment that I first heard your voice
all that completed me
and guided me from that instant
was the melody and the lyrics of your song,
and I have replayed that magical moment ever-since;
you are my princess,
and I will always be your prince;
thinking back to the start of everything,
I always knew that our meeting each-other
and us being together was no accident –
in fact, I have proof that you were heaven-sent;
to use only one word to describe what you mean to me
and how you make me feel would be impossible,
because the only word that comes close is ‘love’ –
but just saying that Love is what I feel for you
ultimately would be an understatement.

My Poem ‘Keeping Mum’

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

I knew that this day would come again,
I knew that the moment would come
when I would write a new poem –
but today, now,
in the silence of Christmas morning,
after opening some presents,
I am sitting here in my room
unable to stop thinking…
I am thinking about my own Christmas Angel,
I am thinking about what this day
in particular means to me,
and I am thinking about my parents –
both separated from each-other as they wake up,
both deeply in love with each other,
both wanting so much to hold one-another,
both together and apart
who have had to go through so much.

As I sit here thinking about my Mum
waking up in her hospital bed,
as I flash-back to the moment
when the reality of what was happening hit me
and I cried and I held my Dad,
I must admit that I do feel sad,
and I just wish that there were a way
for me to stay hopeful
and to keep my faith
that my Mum will be alright
without feeling upset.

I have been going through
several stages of shock at-once
over the last few days
since I heard the news that devastated me
and clouded my thoughts;
my Mum told me that:
“we have to take every day as it comes”,
but, even though she is right,
I just feel like it is going to take me a while
to find my own way of accepting everything
and move forwards –
however, I guess that when any person
who we love is sick it is always tough.

I know that I need to be there for my Mum
now more than ever, because right now
is when she needs me the most;
I know that when I see her later
I am going to want to cry,
but that is not what she needs
or would ever want;
if I never had the light of my life
to guide me through the darkness of uncertainty
then I would feel truly lost;
I would not be here if it were not
for the people from whom I came from;
I am staying hopeful,
and I will never lose hope or give up,
and I will not allow my Mum to lose me,
and no matter what happens
there is nothing and no one
who will ever stop me
from keeping my Mum.

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My Poem ‘Christmas Time’

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

“So this is Christmas,
and what have you done…”
sang John Lennon on the radio
as I sat with my pen and notebook,
as the sun shone through the windows
and reflected off the chrome panels
of a nearby building;
I was near an open door all the while –
but not for a second did I feel cold;
the Christmas songs kept playing,
the air was cozy,
and everybody around me
was locked in their own world;
the Christmas colours and lights
were bright and bold,
and just as I got to the end
of the first verse of my new poem
a familiar voice sang loud:
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

I sit. I stare. I blink. I smile.
I write. I think about how much
I have in common with the life of a sundial –
because I too would be nothing
without the light of the star from afar
that gives my life meaning
and endows me with all that I need
to be who I am supposed to be.

As Louis Armstrong sings
of the “trees of green”
and the “red roses too”
and the blue skies of our “wonderful world” –
I know, I see, I remember
all that he sang about
and what I too believe makes out planet
standout from any other
in the entire universe;
so often, I become both lost and overflowing
with words to describe
all that I see and all that I feel;
I do not know who I would be
if I could not write the language of my heart
on a page in connected verse of poetry.

“White Christmas” starts to play,
and instantly I am back in time
and I am imagining things that happened
so many years ago –
I remember the snow of my childhood,
I remember the happy times I spent with my family,
I remember imagining that if anybody
were to walk on the surface of the moon again
then of course I would;
I remember seeing true beauty
in fallen snowflakes
and knowing that there was more to me and to life,
and twenty years before I would ever have thought
to write anything that I would now
consider in any way poetic.

One last song plays
before I have to leave the place where I am now;
where I am going next I do not know for sure,
because I do not have a fixed plan –
however, as I think of a title
to sign-off my brand new chain of rhymes,
I decide to use the last words
of the song that I hear…
and as my poem is about the world of today,
about me, and is in itself a snap-shot of life –
this poem is about this moment,
and at this moment it is definitely
Christmas time.

My Poem ‘The Gift of Ideas’

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

Ideas are like a tower;
thoughts have a structure;
dreams are like a castle of clouds;
wishes are like a beach
of long-forgotten shells;
memories are like photographs
that have faded over time;
old photo-albums
are like old songs
that remind you of people
and places from your life.

Eyes open; flowers blossom;
light shines; heart-rates rise;
life grows; the dark is exposed;
the clouds part;
a miracle becomes real
as the music starts –
and like the composer of an orchestra,
you put together the pieces of picture:
sometimes the music is loud,
sometimes the instruments are distinctive,
sometimes the players are both known
and unknown –
perhaps just one face in a crowd;
sometimes, most of the time,
what comes seemingly from the most random
reasons and places
are the most impressive,
even to the dreamer of the dream –
because they are so wonderfully inventive.

Things are not always obvious;
the seemingly unconnected
may have more in common with one-another
than they appear;
just like people,
some things sometimes speak
with a similar-sounding voice;
sometimes even a thing of extreme beauty
can bring someone to tears.

Ideas can be like a lost puppy
that you find walking the streets
without an owner;
ideas about people and things
sometimes change and can be
like the highs, the lows,
and the speeds of a roller-coaster
that go in every direction
before finally coming to a rest;
ideas can be like reconnecting
with a long-lost sister or brother;
ideas are one of life’s
most amazing and incredible gifts.

My Poem ‘Paracosmic’

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

Within all of our minds
we all live in a paracosm of reality;
by mixing the real with the imaginary
we can all see sights beyond imagining;
with our eyes we see,
with our ears we hear,
with our insights and our intuition
we create a map of our universe
that is coloured by the memories
we have made that are all
the more beautiful and amazing
because they are too deep
and too perfect to be in any way
artificially designed.

We all hold the key
to the lock of a doorway
that leads far beyond the stars;
we all fly with a burning tail
that contains the fire of rebirth
like the feathers of a phoenix;
we all can watch people take giant leaps,
and then take epic leaps of our own
and imagine we are the first human on Mars;
we all like that moment in a story
when we reach the point
when the story becomes
about something unexpected entirely
with a wonderful dramatic twist.

Stories have a structure,
life is naturally more organic;
stories have characters
that have defining characteristics,
intentions and motivations,
that tie the beginning and the end together;
life is like an untamed animal,
and like any wild creature –
when you come face to face with it
it never pays to run, blink, or panic.

I can return to my dream-scape, my paracosm,
my imagination mansion of infinite rooms
whenever I close my eyes
or whenever I look at the world
and I see rhyme and reason happening
and dancing with one-another in-tandem;
everybody has a world within themselves
where they can be the monarch of their own kingdom;
to me, fantasy is just reality re-imagined
and transformed as if with the dust of Morpheus
into a dream, a wish, or a prayer;
with our mind we can all envision
a way to solve every and any problem of the world –
and sometimes what starts within us
can manifest and be seen and heard
like a dragon awakening from their lair.

People dive deep below
the surface of reality
into the sea of a story
when something tells them
that there is something about it
that they need to know;
books are self-contained galaxies
that have hidden bridges within them
that link them to each other,
as well as to the future and the past;
the times when the more that we blink,
the more that we think,
and the more that we want to make a moment last –
that is when we run, we fly, we dive, we fall,
and take with us our memories of a time
so that they can live forever within our paracosm,
and always have the power of them
to make us feel paracosmic.

My Poem ‘Fever’

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

There are places in space,
there are moments in time,
there are faces, there are rhymes,
there are things that happen,
there are people who are who they are,
there are things that draw your attention,
there are an infinite number of multi-coloured stars
that brighten, enliven, and make your life feel
as if it is complete,
there are links that form
that give strength to weak.

Some may look at the landscape of a war-zone
and see desolation and a reason to doubt
the longevity of life on our planet,
while another person looking at the same sight
may see it as an opportunity to rebuild
and to reinvigorate, and to heal old wounds
and to put long-lasting hope into the mortar
and the stone of the newly relaid foundations
and draw lines of inter-connectivity
into the very blueprints of what is being rebuilt.

Anything can happen at any moment;
anybody can imagine anything
when their senses are brought to life,
like a spark to a fire;
even a single word can have lasting importance;
even a single glance and a look
can quickly evolve into desire.

A flash of light and colour;
the touch on your skin of a gust of wind;
the sound of a voice that always pulls you into
a magical world of wonder;
the feeling of euphoria that true love brings;
the way that things are,
the way that the many faces of the universe inter-work,
the way that even the smallest of actions
can have the most life-changing of powers,
is what will always be as things are forever –
and that is why it is always important
to cherish, to take care, and to kindle an idea,
because it does not take much in the right hands
for a single thought and dream
to take over and spread like a fever.

My Poem ‘Living the dream’

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

Morning. Silence.
Blue sky. Sunday.
Sunshine. Green leaves.
The sound of flying birds and bees.
People having breakfast;
people cutting their lawn;
people still in bed
enjoying a well-earned rest;
people opening their eyes to the daylight;
people opening their mouths wide with a yawn.

Church bells ringing;
friends cycling;
music on the radio playing;
somebody somewhere
on the early morning ocean
sailing, loving, breathing, living.

Walkers, runners, riders,
painters, daydreamers, photographers,
embrace every moment of light and feeling;
diners, parishioners,
attend the same place of worship
and break bread together to prove
that they believe what they believe;
pilots, para-gliders,
balloonists, sky-divers
take to the air and defy gravity
and live the dream of touching the worlds ceiling –
people who just want to step away
from the rush of the world for a short time
and feel the amazing and the rejuvenating energy
of total and utter release.

People experiencing awe;
people feeling wonder;
people traveling far;
people feeling hunger.
I look at the world
and I see depths of colour;
I listen to what I hear,
and I hear sounds
from every length of the sound spectrum –
from water-drops in a pond
to the joyous explosion
of a child’s laughter.

Life is important;
life and purpose is individually indefinable,
and yet understandable, tangible,
as well as miraculously magical;
life can only be lived once;
life and dreams can sometimes be indistinguishable;
life is living and not worrying
about the things that people sometimes say
and the things that some people do;
life is reading, feeling, sharing,
and witnessing the dream of life come true.

My Poem ‘Psyched’

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

Every morning is a new beginning;
every time we open our eyes
we see something we have never seen before;
every time something opens our eyes wide
we all experience a sensation
that feels to us as if we are falling;
every night just before we fall asleep
every one of us psychs ourselves up
for the day that is to come –
and just as when we are a child,
the first steps that we take of anything
are as important and are as essential
as finding your balance and then walking,
or making sound and saying words
that will form the basis of talking
and sharing what you are thinking.

Whenever each of us has a task to perform,
or a thing that we must do,
each of us has to build up some kind of momentum
before we can truly move;
whenever an artist looks in front of themselves
and they see the space of a blank page,
each and every artist needs to see
an imaginary picture so that they have a guide
to follow, or the outlines of something
in between which they can colour in
with their own emotion
and individual experience colour palette
that they have been mixing together
successfully their entire lives
every single day.

Just as every artist needs a muse to inspire them,
everybody needs something or someone
to get up for and to keep them going;
just as every day, in a way,
everybody has to start again,
sometimes you just have to act on instinct
and use the power of your muscle memory
to see you through something
without any unnecessary deep-thinking.

Days must end so that others may dawn;
we all must go through darkness
so that we can appreciate the light of life;
close one door behind you
as you open another exciting new door –
and as you do, leave signposts
and suggestions for others that may follow behind you
so that you can teach what you have learned
and all that you have been taught.

For anything that you may face,
for everything that you have got to do –
do what you would do
if you had to make a high-dive:
close your eyes; take a breath;
imagine the splash,
not the jump or the fall;
and smile your widest smile
to get yourself truly psyched.

My Poem ‘The Light of Me’

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

The light of my eyes,
the light in my heart,
the light in my mind,
the light of my soul,
the words of my poetry,
the beautiful perfection of my muse,
the hope that I feel and see,
the rhyme, the reason,
the redemption, the revelation,
for everything that I do;
the way that I write;
the way that I walk;
the voice that is all mine;
the phenomenal and the inspiring
answer that always returns my call.

When I first began writing,
I knew that I had found my path;
when I first sat down
to write that very first verse,
it felt so natural,
and yet I was nervous;
when I first discovered
that I had something inside me
that could touch the heart of someone else,
it only made me want to feel,
think, and write more and more –
I knew that my first poem
would not and could not be my last;
when I first opened my heart
and I saw my words come to life
and grow one by one
until they become a poem
and a part of me that I loved,
I knew that my instinct
for seeing the hopeful and the good
in almost every and any situation
was one that, above every other,
I should listen to and trust.

As soon as I knew that I was a poet,
at that instant my entire world changed –
it was a perfect moment
when everything fell into place,
it was a time in and of my life
that I will never forget;
it might sound silly,
but I did not know what to do –
I did not question
my newly discovered super-power,
however it was like starting a journey
to somewhere and to something
that was to me beautifully brand new.

My thoughts changed, my feelings changed,
and I felt like a new man;
I met new people, I made new friends,
and I felt like I now had the happy thought
that would allow me to fly
with joy and excitement, like Peter Pan.
The universe opened up like a natural history book,
and so many details and secrets
that I had missed before about the world
started to pop up;
people started to speak to me
and say so much to me
with the power of a single look;
my dreams became epic adventures;
my experiences felt more profound
and worthy of being shared in poetry;
my creativity was met with love
and gratitude which alleviated
any and all of my fears;
my entire life as poet began
when I looked into a mirror,
and I saw looking back at me
was who I really was,
and what I saw was the light of me.

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