time

My Poem “Bandit”

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

I might wear a mask
but I am not a criminal…
I might cover my face
but you don’t need to be fearful…
you might not be able
to see my mouth but
underneath I am a smiling …
you might not be able
to recognize me by my eyes alone
but I hope that you can see
that I am not lying
when I tell you that I will
never stop hoping nor believing
that the human race can make it
through anything and everything.

How times change…
How different things can rapidly
turn from one state into another…
How often people have to cross
from one side and from
one lane to another…
How times of crisis make people
look around and want to comfort
each other when they stop looking
for someone to blame.

Events dictate our actions
and what we have to learn from
for our very survival…
our past self speaks to our present self
and our present self calls out to our
future self for them to forgive us
for some of the things that we did…
everything and everybody is kinetic
and nothing can stay static and the same
even if they want to because,
like a river, time never flows uphill…
in life sometimes we all have to grab
a hold of opportunities for optimism
and run wild with the new hope that we
have acquired and be like a bandit
in a world struggling to find their way.

My Poem “Eternity’s Ultimate Goal”

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

The world of life is filled with colour…
the underworld is black and white…
the world around us is like no other…
the world to come is devoid of time,
perspective, reason, and drive…
the world of the now is where
and when we accomplish what
we are meant to do…
the world behind the invisible curtain
is where we reflect on what was
and what could have been…
the world of the present is
where, when, and how the universe renews…
the world beyond this one that is so
unfathomable from the reality of the tangible
because what people encounter
when they pass over is so ethereal
that what and who we interact with
would be similar to that of a dream…
the world that people see, hear, feel
touch and think about every day
is constantly evolving…
the world far beyond the clouds
is the next phase of the soul…
the world in which the living live in
is a journey with a definitive ending…
I believe that the world of the infinite
that awaits everybody is where people go
to find all the missing pieces from
their life that they lost in order to
fully understand what is the true
and pure answer that explains
the meaning of all life
and eternity’s ultimate goal.

My Poem “Thirty-Nine”

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

The direction of time
is something that we
have no control over –
but what we choose to do with
the time that we have
is ours and ours alone…
time flows in one direction
like the stream of a river –
and sometimes the currents
that we encounter propel us
into the future both fast and slow,
but the answer as to where
we will ultimately find ourselves
no one can know.

Throughout my life
I have had to make choices
that would lead to influencing
what I would do, where I would go,
and who and what I would love –
and, in reflection, as I look back
upon my life and how I feel like
I have been remade time and again,
I realize now more than ever
that although I cannot deny
that there are things from my life
that if given the chance I would change
I am blessed to have the life that I have,
I am thankful to have the people
in my life that I have,
and I am grateful to have been given
the opportunities that I have had
to see the world, to have experienced
all the joys of life that I have experienced,
and to have walked a path that has
seen me realizing dreams come true
and finding answers to questions
that I never knew.

There is so much from my life
that I will always remember fondly…
there are so many moments from my life
that are still crystal clear in my memory…
there is so much from my life
that makes me who I am
that was gifted to me by those
who know me and by those who love me
who are inexorably entangled
with the poetry of my life…
there are too many things that I could
mention that stand out for me
and constantly remind me of why
I feel so lucky to be alive –
but I am eternally grateful,
thankful, and I am happy to say
that although I do wish
that I could do more to help people – especially at this time –
I am fortunate to have been given
the life that I have
and I am glad to have made it
to the fine age of thirty-nine.

My Poem “The Gift of Freedom”

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

The beat of the raindrops falling
outside my bedroom window
sounds like someone is playing
a drum solo of some kind,
and the tune that I hear
is one that is unique to my ears
because it is being slowly conducted,
created and performed by nature itself
randomly and yet beautifully
and at a time when individual
creativity and ingenuity
seems to be at its most prized.

Grey clouds obscure the blue sky above…
people queue in their droves to go
shopping at their preferred supermarkets
and convenience stores –
however, there are definitely less people
walking, cycling, and driving from place to place
than there normally would be…
people are naturally trying to use
their time inside their homes wisely
by making things and by doing daily chores
while spending the majority of their time
surrounded by the same familiar four walls.

It’s good to do things…
it’s good to have routines…
it’s good to focus your attention
on what you can do to keep
the light with you and within
everybody around you shining…
it’s good to start something,
it’s good to finish something,
it’s good to repeat something,
it’s good to find meaning in something –
because sometimes by doing something
you can discover that that which
you have been looking for
has been present in your life
and has been secretly
inspiring your dreams for some time…
sometimes it is not until people
have to surrender to living a life
of incarceration, lockdown,
isolation and quarantine
that they realize what the true gift
of freedom is and what it truly means.

My Poem “Wonderful World”

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

Black crows flying against
a bright blue sky,
as butterflies dance in the air
seemingly joyously
as if they had just emerged
from their cocoons
and were learning how to fly,
as daisies, dandelions,
and the leaves of every tree
gently sway in the breeze.

There is the welcome sight
of many different types of life
that has been absent for some time –
including what must be
one of the busiest insects
on planet Earth:
the always buzzing,
the always working,
the vibrant and the unmistakable
black and yellow bumblebees
who are all out and about
collecting nectar and pollinating
as they hover from flower to flower.

Life is resilient…
nature has it’s own cycles…
sometimes the most defeaning
of sounds is silence…
change is often the hardest thing
for people to deal with –
especially those changes
that leave echoes and reverberations
that can last for a good long while…
nothing complicated can be rushed,
nothing simple is as uncomplicated
as it at first appears.

Sunrises, sunsets, birdsong,
language, communication
between two separate
and yet connected sources
is ever-present and ongoing,
no matter the time of the day,
the day of the month,
or the month of the year,
the past, the present, the future
of everything and everyone
is contained within our pristine
crystal ball of a planet
that is the most beautiful of them all
because of the compelling complexity
that binds every form of life
of this wonderful world.

My Poem “Storm before the Calm”

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

Sometimes life can seem
uncontrollable…
sometimes life can feel
like it is literally
sweeping you off your feet…
sometimes life can seem
like it is hitting you
where you hurt the most…
sometimes life can feel
like you are riding out
a storm on a boat being
tossed around by the rising
and falling waves of an ocean
as an unstoppable force
tries to pull you deep beneath.

There are times in everyone’s life
when we all feel struck down
by either illness or by circumstances
and we feel unable to pick ourselves
back up without a helping hand
to aid us, to keep us going,
to tell us that we are
going to be alright,
and that no matter how dark
the clouds above might seem
there will come an instance
when the sun will break through
and herald a blue sky
of new possibilities to be
drawn to and hypnotized by.

When things seemingly come
from out of nowhere
it can at first feel scary,
confusing, and like you are
never going to overcome
and get through whatever
is plaguing you;
however, following every time
of uncertainty, sickness, or incapacity,
anyone can eventually find a way
to move past those moments of alarm
and find refuge somewhere,
or by doing something,
to weather the storms that they
find themselves within,
and in time find a sense of peace,
prosperity, and calm.

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 “Fountains”

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

We are all fountains of life,
fountains of experience,
foundations of memories,
foundations of knowledge
who each day learn, remember,
and share droplets of who we are,
what we are, where we have been,
what we have done, what makes us happy,
and who we love and adore.

We all generate echoes, distortions,
and invisible fields of gravity,
fields of identity, fields of insight,
and fields of influence around us
that interact with people close by
and people far away –
just like how the light of a sunrise
will naturally inspire someone,
or how the beat of a butterfly’s wings
it is said can effect
which way the weather will take.

We all live walking on the water
of a pool of time that is deeper
than we could ever know,
or ever perceive –
and in my opinion it would be a crime
to waste the moments
that we are gifted with from time to time
to enjoy all the things that life
blesses us with that most people
might take for granted:
a sunny day, a moonlit night,
a penny waiting to picked up
off the ground,
a smile, a breathtaking view,
a walk in the park,
or perhaps the dancing jets
and rippling waves of a serene,
hypnotising and incredibly
entrancing fountain that takes you
back to your youth.

My Poem “Peace of Mind”

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

When we go so far outwardly
I find that it is sometimes necessary
to turn inwardly, to regress –
if only momentarily –
essentially to regain some perspective,
to connect all the dots that lead
from where we were and who we were
to where we find ourselves
at a given moment in time,
in order to appreciate everything
that we have and to realize why
what we left in the past
we needed to leave behind
for the prosperity of our future
as well as our present peace of mind.

My Poem “At Ease”

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

At ease.
You cannot beat the feeling
of having nothing to do,
nowhere in particular to go,
and nothing that takes all
of your attention to do.
I never take the gift
of free time for granted –
those precious moments
when you can look at
the world around you
and truly see and pay attention
to so many of the small details
that go into making life so
fundamentally profound and poignant.
Seeking out peace and tranquility
is so essential when trying to recover
from the extremely tiring tasks
that we may be expected to perform
in our daily lives,
and finding a place and a time
where and when you can sit down
and take your ease
is wonderful beyond compare –
especially as we get older.
Time is never wasted –
even if someone appears
to be doing “nothing” –
because we are all constantly
interacting with life,
just as life is constantly
interacting with us,
and it truly does help to be
with your own thoughts sometimes
in order for you to reset, renew,
and refocus yourself.
We often take time for granted,
however I never get tired
of being out somewhere
and being inspired by what I see before me –
things which just call out to me
to see the poetry within them
that is just as free and just as powerful
as the light from the sun upon my face
or the feeling of a slight breeze
gently touching the back of my neck.
Life is poetry, and poetry is life.