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My Poem ‘Words of Destiny’

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

A sword of words,
a motto to be repeated today
and remembered tomorrow,
a race to find a cure,
an illuminated road before you,
a journey into the unknown,
a trek of discovery,
a tale to tell yourself
when you are alone,
one poem of one poet’s poetry,
can be life-changing,
can be scary,
can be life-saving,
and can be all that you have ever wanted –
sometimes the smallest things
can make us the most happy.

Diversity and difference
is what life is built on;
some people can’t help being individualistic,
and some people can’t help being
someone who follows in the same direction of a crowd –
everybody has an inherent nature
that is always turned on,
and everybody knows the power
of both silence and sound.

A whisper can be like a droplet of rain;
a message can be like the downpour of a storm;
an echo can be like a flood of water
that can’t be drained away completely;
an event of epic-proportions
can turn a once dried up river
again into a raging waterfall.

Not everybody listens to a warning
when they first hear it;
the sudden impact of something
can create a crack
that if not filled
will only get worse as time goes on;
it can sometimes be hard
to break a life-time habit;
everyone on Earth shares an irrefutable connection.

Words are an obsession;
music is the language of someone’s heart
made so that all can hear
the dreams and wishes of someone’s soul;
words of every language
can be a source of warmth
on days when the air is cold;
music does not require translation,
because it transcends time and race,
and it will never go out of fashion.

One person’s opinion
can be the deciding factor in something;
one word can mean more than a hundred;
one person can capture your heart forever
when they speak to you,
or when they open their mouth
and their words sing;
one compliment can be to you
the most beautiful poetry;
one war can be won by one knight,
and they can lead and unite an entire army
with one sword;
one seed of an idea
can be but the beginning
of a chain of words
that could grow to become
the most epic of destinies.

My Poem ‘The Foreseeable’

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

No matter how much the climate changes…
no matter the year, the decade, or the century…
no matter the faces of the famous
displayed online or printed
on the black and white newspaper pages…
no matter how we interact with one-another –
face to face, or by using the most
up-to-date technology…
some things will never change
and will always stay the same…
no matter what the names are
of the games that people love to play…
days and dates will always continue
to mean something –
especially on those occasions
when people can celebrate
and enjoy light that never stops sparkling.

Many of us are creatures of habit –
I, myself, have walked the same way,
done the same things,
listened to the same music so many times
that people could probably
set their clocks by me –
some may wonder what it is
about my almost daily-routine
that stimulates me and keeps me
from repeating my actions
to the degree that they become boring;
however, all I can say
is that no matter how many times
I go to the same place,
or I do the same thing,
every single day
I see something,
I hear something,
I learn something
that I never knew before –
and, to me, each new day
and every new person that I see
is a mystery to observe and explore.

Routine keeps the world turning;
repeating keeps an engine from stalling;
re-reading keeps a person’s thoughts running;
reevaluating everything you see
keeps the world exciting and inspiring;
reminding yourself of why it is important
to do some things regularly
remedies any and all short-comings
about you or your life
that you feel there may sometimes be.

For the vast-majority of our lives,
most of the things that happen to us
are predictable;
we all can have a so-called “ordinary day”,
during which there will be something
that will happen that will be remarkable;
our life’s cycles are some of the most
special and personal things
that we can always rely on and fall back on,
and they are what make our lives
feel full and wonderful;
the world will consistently remain
changeable, recyclable,
and indomitably-incapable
of not trying to reinvent itself
without breaking its own mould –
and in doing so
everything and everybody
will always have a part of them
that will be both random
and foreseeable.

My Poem ‘One Life Only’

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

The meaning of life
is not to be rich –
the reason you are here
is to find the one
with whom you are meant to be with;
the reason for the waves of the ocean
is the same as the reason
that everybody has emotions;
the reason why we change
when we fall in love
is because we are always reminded
subconsciously of the instant of our birth,
when we opened our eyes and we looked above,
and we came eye-to-eye
with the first face that we saw –
every day of our lives
we want to feel what we felt,
and we want to find the only other person
who could ever compare
to the first love of our lives
that we naturally and instinctively adored.

A little-known thing
that as we get older we all forget…
a seemingly small but significant moment,
like a sunset…
the knowledge that the more that you give
the more that you get…
the thing that will remain
ingrained in your brain
even after your body’s last breath…
the last thought
that will pave the way
to heaven after death…
that which will build
the landscape of the world to come next…

What you do with your life is your choice –
the repercussions of your actions
will be your true voice;
when you are low,
when you reach the wall of “I don’t know”,
when you feel pulled in every direction,
when you want to make what you do for pleasure
and what you do for love
your one and only profession,
when you can live
and be there for someone else,
when it finally dawns on you
that the most important people
in your life are what make up
the true riches of your wealth –
then you will know what you have been missing,
then you will know you have a world of everything,
then the sun will shine even on rainy day,
and then you will live the dream
that will never fade away.

If we could all go back to the beginning,
if we could all go back to the start,
if we could all know the self-titled song
of our lives that we have been singing along to
since day one,
if we could put our present
back inside time’s wrapping,
if we could find earlier
the one with whom we share the same heart,
we might find our life
slowly coming undone –
so, don’t think too much
about the road less traveled,
don’t think about wanting your life
to fly by, or to get older quicker…
take every day slowly;
don’t think, just do;
find the one for you,
even if you have to search the entire world;
let things happen as naturally as possible;
build a home of bricks, not sticks;
don’t worry about the why of things,
just make the most of your
one life only.

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 ‘Feelings’

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

As one book closes,
another story begins;
as a new book begins,
the eternal story continues;
as eyes open to greet new light,
eyelids fall under the weight of the stars
that shine above at night;
and while some rise high,
others cannot help but fall deep.

Every day we understand
more about our own lives;
every minute we wonder
what happened to all of our time;
every second our heart’s keep beating
to tell us that we can do more
with our gift of life;
every spark of thought
that comes to our minds
can be like the lure
on the end of a fisherman’s line
calling to, and connecting with,
both the past and the future,
the unforgettable
and the one of a kind.

The pages of time
flick back and forth
like leaves on the wind;
if you look closely around you
you may even see who and where
you were when you were younger;
whatever, or whomever, brings light
and joy into your life
will always be your best friend;
every moment only comes once;
every experience has a half-life;
everybody follows in the foot-steps of another;
embrace every chance of happiness;
enlighten the world with your smile and your grin;
live your dreams day to day and night to night;
in your life there will never be nothing,
because all that you need
will always be that which is closest to you –
we all have hands, fingers, eyes, and a mouth
to grasp and to show
the colours of our feelings.

My Poem ‘Thankful for’

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

As family prepare to gather,
as the sun shines
and the sky is blue –
as someone who is thankful,
as someone who is grateful,
who is both the loved and the lover,
I am thankful in more ways
than I could ever say
to be alive and to be able
to write this for you.

I take lots of time
thinking about the who,
the what, and the when
that have passed by like a river;
I constantly reflect
what I see and what I feel;
I have always considered
golden experiences
as memories to be made
a part of my DNA,
as well as simultaneously
to be remembered;
I have always believed
that no matter where you are in your life,
wherever you are in the world,
that there is always something
that to anybody else would seem small –
but to you that same something is a big deal.

As I have gotten older,
the things that I am thankful for have changed –
but that which matters the most to me
is still the same;
as I have lived, I have slowly come to realize
that life goes by faster than a bullet-train,
and things do sometimes happen
that you should not spend too much time
trying to explain.

Clouds form, rain falls;
colour is painted over the face of the dark;
there is no such thing as an impenetrable wall;
the seafloor, the sands of an island shore,
the photos of now compared to those of before,
that which will be forevermore:
the indescribable, the tangible,
the special, the spiritual –
that which only I will ever truly know –
is what I am the most grateful for;
however, the gift of love
given with all their heart
by the love of my life only to me
is the thing that I am the most fulfilled by
and in my life I am the most thankful for.

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 ‘Coat of Arms’

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

It’s a cold day in early November –
the pavements are clear,
but the sky is white;
it is so cold
that everybody who is out and about
is wrapped up well
and trying to keep warm
in sanctuaries inside;
I am bracing myself
to return to the freezing temperatures
of the outside world,
on the other side of the window
of the coffee shop where I am sitting –
however, what comforts me,
and what I know will warm me
as I brave the cold,
is the same thing and the same feeling
that I get after the love of my life
and I have kissed –
and I know that when it is time
for me to leave where I am now
and venture home,
I know that the love that I share
with my soulmate and my best friend
who lives far away
will surround me and keep me enveloped
like an electric blanket
when I put on my “Melissa” leather jacket.

People seem to be moving quicker;
time seems to be going faster;
people are purchasing more
than they normally world
at every cash-register;
it is frigid outside at the moment,
but I know that this
is only but the start of winter.

People are booking
their summer holidays already;
the world is settling in
to a brand new season;
people are hoping
that when Christmas arrives
they will be ready;
as is necessary,
every thing that is happening
is happening for a reason.

Illuminations and decorations
are being hung in preparation
of being switched on
and enjoyed to their full-effect;
birds are leaving their nests
and flying south to warmer climates;
I am thinking about the future
and about the happy
and the wonderful times
that I will share
with that special someone in my life
that have not happened yet;
the future itself
is being illuminated right in front of me,
and I am ready to race towards it,
while not once thinking
to ever want to take off
my own coat of arms
that is my “Melissa” jacket.

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My Poem ‘Time to Remember’

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

We remember the heroes;
we remember the villains;
we remember the what,
the where, the when, and the why;
we remember the people who tried;
we remember the people who achieved;
we remember those who fought the good fight
but who died while doing what they loved
and what they believed in;
we remember the good times,
and we remember the bad;
we remember the times
that went by too quickly,
that we remember coming to an end
as we looked over our shoulder and cried.

As the weather turns colder,
as the leaves change colour
and then fall to the ground,
as people wrap up more
and wear more layers,
as we buy fireworks and light bonfires
and we gather together
and we start to think about the well-being
of our significant others,
a spirit of good-will and humanity
sweeps over the world.

We should all be thankful for what we have;
there will always be someone
who will look at you
and want what means the most to you;
we all make new footprints
while walking again down familiar paths;
sometimes, especially at this time of the year,
things of importance come to light
that before you always wondered about
but you never knew.

Gifts of sentiment,
things that still carry a shine of memory,
the unique and the different,
the people who matter to you dearly,
seem to glow brighter
at the coldest and the darkest time of the year-
and now is the perfect time
to tell someone or to remind someone
that as long as they are in your thoughts
and as long as they are a part of your life
that they need not fear.

Gather, surround,
think, thank, be grateful, wrap,
step closer, invite,
reconnect the ties
that were once believed severed forever;
forgive, but do not forget;
make the most of the present;
save all that you can,
because these are the times
of your life to remember.

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My Poem ‘Embrace’

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

The caress of a face;
the holding of hands;
the hypnotism of a trance;
the perfect touch
of a beautiful embrace.

The spiritual, the emotional,
the physical, the transcendental,
the look, the love,
the feeling, the instinctual,
the rush, the spark,
the explosion,
the silence of light and dark
that makes real the impossible,
that is indescribable,
that is a miracle,
that is heaven on Earth,
that is as beautiful as a hummingbird,
that is the ultimate force in the universe,
that poet’s obsess over while putting into words,
that many crave, that we all know,
that can surround you and lead you
like the path of a maze,
that is exciting and phenomenal
in the way that it can make someone glow.

A wish and a prayer
can blossom like a flower;
a thought and a memory
can steal your time;
a source of happiness
can have infinite power;
a destiny can be a life-line.

Until you feel the raging fire of desire,
until you let yourself fall in love
like a crashing meteorite from above,
until you see with your own eyes
what grows and what sustains
and what reinvigorates,
and what goes on and never dies,
only when you let things happen
and you do not resist,
can you know what it is like to be a star,
or like a pacific beach near an ocean
that has been newly sun-kissed.

To have someone.
To hold someone.
To love someone.
To be as precious as gold to someone.
To accept, to support, to champion,
to be a devoted companion,
and to be the one who leaves an indelible mark
on the inside of someone
but who on the outside
only leaves an invisible trace,
is to be the beholder of light, love,
perfection like that of an angel’s face
that is as timeless and is as ever-present
even after the first embrace.

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