time

My Poem “Be Excellent To One Another”

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

I am fortunate to have been on
more than one amazing, unforgettable
and excellent adventure in my time,
that were all so incredible to me,
and there have been moments
when I have felt as if I were traveling
both forwards and backwards through time –
because who and what I encountered
upon my travels made me look at the world,
at the universe, at reality,
and at space in such a profound,
fundamental, and in such a transformative way
that I never wanted to stop traveling,
because I felt that with every conversation
I was learning something about life
that something or someone
wanted to share with me
within the message of what
“Mother Nature” and “Father Time”
wanted to convey.

I have always wanted to be a time traveler…
I have always wanted to step outside
of the here and the now and see
and interact with people from the past,
as well as learn what the landscape
of the future will one day look like…
I have always wanted to have the power
to speak to ancestors
who lived before I born,
as well as look into the eyes
of descendants who have not yet
been delivered into the world
and enquire about whether I am remembered…
I have always wanted to travel
to a time beyond the wildest dreams
that anybody has ever imagined.

Fantasy is often a collection of ideas
inspired by something every day and familiar
that has been taken one step further
or many steps back so that
it can comment on the events
of present without its message being
considered to be overly heavy-handed…
you can sometimes learn a lot
from fantasy about what is missing in reality…
truths that are irrefutable are what
people cling to and they are what
ground someone like an anchor…
if I have learned anything about life
about the past or the potential future
from books, from TV shòws, and from movies,
it is that if you want to live in a world
that is not full of fakery
and you do not want to commit too much
of your time to those things
and to those people who are bogus,
the best thing to do is to instead
treat everybody with the same respect –
and perhaps one day everyone
all around the world will party
and be excellent to one another.

My Poem “Mirror World”

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Scientists say that they have detected

a stream of emanating Cosmic Rays –
powerful particles that are usually found
in the expanse of outer space –
that they believe may be
one of the first pieces of evidence
ever discovered of the potential
presence of a reality that may
exist alongside our own:
an invisible and divisible parallel universe,
but one in which the laws of physics
do not apply as we know them to –
because everything may be happening
in reverse to how we know they should go …
a universe in which time itself
may be running backwards
instead of the forwards momentum
that we are used to on
this side on the cosmic mirror –
and scientists believe this may be the case
because the Cosmic Rays
that were detected were not
coming from outer space,
they were coming from Antarctica,
right here on planet Earth.

Essentially, inadvertently,
scientists have accidentally
turned Science Fiction
into Science Fact,
fantasy into reality –
because for decades writers of
both prose and entertainment
have postulated and dramatized
that such parallel universes
are in fact real and yet detached
existences where life proceeds differently
but on some level has some
connection to our “normal”,
every day, reality.

I find this new discovery fascinating…
I find this new evidence inspiring…
I find the prospect of this new
anitclockwise universe as something
that may one day herald a greater
understanding of how the universe works…
I have always been lured to stories
of places like Lewis Carroll’s tale
of Alice when she stepped “Through
the Looking Glass” –
and it seems, as if lifted from
Lewis Carroll’s own spellbinding words,
that there is in fact somewhere
that we cannot see directly,
but which appears to be,
some kind of counter-intuitive
parallel universe – essentially
a “mirror world” that is an
alternate reality.

My Poem “Turnaround”

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

There are times when
there is a prolonged period
of inactivity, of inability,
of inaction, of hibernation
when some animals and some people
experience a status of stasis –
when life and time regresses
and even slows down to some degree;
however, for every time of hibernation
and rehabilitation there must come
a moment when there is a physical,
a psychological, and an instinctual
reawakening that initially may only
be a transitional period
between darkness and light,
between conservation and drive –
and when such a long season
of staying inside comes to an end
there can be momentary thoughts
and feelings of trepidation,
but no matter what anybody or anything
does in life there are sometimes
risks that need to be taken
to turn a world from upside down to
right side up and when you have to
naturally start looking forwards
instead of backwards –
especially when you want to see everything that may have changed
in the interim of a certain confinement
slowly but surely resume and restart,
so that the future of everything and everyone who you know has recently
been through so much will over time
restore and turn themselves around.

My Poem “We Can’t Go On Like This”

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

We can’t go on like this forever…
we can’t go on staying away from places,
wearing masks, and being socially
distant from one another…
we can’t go on living in insulated bubbles –
because if we do then we must
expect ourselves to over time
become suffocated from real life
and traumatised emotionally
as well as psychologically as if were
we prisoners who had committed a crime…
we can’t go on living a life as if one
that parallels those of the past –
because the destiny of humanity
is to be interconnected both emotionally
as well as physically, and if we are not
then I believe that we may one day
find ourselves regressing as a species and over time aggressively devolving
into even smaller tribes.

We can’t go on not exploring new things
and not finding ourselves somewhere
that we never expected ourselves to be…
we can’t go on not sharing new
personal experiences –
even those made under
the most extreme and
stressful of circumstances…
we can’t go on not living like
we need to live for our further development
so as to ensure that we live to see
the day when the entire world faces
all the threats that present themselves
together
rather than individually and country by country.

People can’t go on not working,
people can’t go on not providing,
people can’t go on as they are
and as they have had to
for far too long as it is –
however I know that everybody
around the world can collectively
agree that no matter what happens
humanity will survive what is going on now,
but in the long term we cannot go on like this.

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.